
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Bt^jQSS 



Shelf 



fUd 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



\ 



SERIES OF BRIEF 

HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

OF THE 

CHURCH OF ENGLAND, 

AND OF THE 

PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH 

IN THE 

UNITED STATES. 



Rector of St. Paul's Church, Franklm, Tennessee. 



■ 4^^ • 



NEW YORK: 
GENERAL PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL 

Sunday School Union and Church Book Society, 

762 BROADWAY. 
1860. 



6^ 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 

M. S. ROYCE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the Middle Tennessee District Court 
of the United States. 



OLABEHONT MAlHJFAOTITBIirO 00: 
N. W. Goddard, Printer. 



PREFACE. 



The greater part of this tract was originally prepared as 
a series of Lectures for the benefit of the writer's own con- 
gregation, and was delivered in that form several years ago. 
He has hoped to see a short and lucid statement of the 
prominent points in the History of the Church of England 
given to the public, by some one abler and better informed 
than himself ; but having waited some time in vain, his 
conviction of the importance of the subjects herein discussed, 
and the advice of judicious friends, have induced him to 
publish these pages. He hopes they may be found useful to 
communicants of the Church who may not have time nor 
opportunity to examine larger works; and he sincerely 
trusts that they may be read by others also who are willing 
to foUow truth, when they are satisfied that it is truth, even 
though it should cross their prejudices, or lead them to 
conclusions directly contrary to those which they had 
previously held. 

The Author is indebted to the kind assistance of his 
friend, the Rev. C. T. Quint ard, Rector of the Church of 
the Advent^ Nashville, for many of the notes found in theso 
pageS; and for many references to authorities which he 
could not otherwise have obtained except at the expense of 
much time and labor. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Churcb of Christ must have a History. — Advantages of 
knowing that history. — The Chnrch the same in all ages. 
Organization of the Protestant Episcopal Church. — The 
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States one 
with the Church of England in doctrine and fellowship. — 
Origin of the Church of England. — Founded in the days 
of the Apostles, or very near them. — St. Paul probably 
the founder. — Origin of the British Councils and estab- 
lishment of Schools of Theology. — Relapse into Paganism, 
and return to Christianity. — Labors of Augustine. — Re- 
fusal of the British Christians to submit to him. — The 
usurpation of the Bishop of Rome gradual. ... 11 

CHAPTER II. 

The National Churches of Apostolic and primitive times. — 
The Faith, Government and Ministry the same every- 
where. — Only one Bishop to every large city, but many 
presbyters and deacons. — All Bishops equal in authority 
and rank. — Provincial and National Churches. — Metro- 
politans. — Each National Church perfect in itself. — 
National Churches at present in existence. — Churches of 
Spain, France, Rome, England. — Rise, fall, and restora- 
tion of the English Church. — Who shall cast a stone at 
her? .35 



VIU CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER m. 

The period of the decline of the English Church. — The 
Church quite pure in the time of Augustine. — Origin of 
using Latin in the Liturgy — its results. — IVIarriage of the 
Clergy prohibited, though customary at first. — Immuni- 
ties granted to the Monasteries. — Their corruptions. — 
The good that they effected. — The Monasteries the schools 
of the middle ages. — Rise of the Papal authority in Eng- 
land. — The Pope's oppressive taxation of the English 
Church. — Changes in faith introduced by Papal author- 
ity. — Progress of error slow but constant. — The evil in 
the Church always more notorious than the good. — The 
English Church the purest in Western Europe. — Proofs 
that the Church was a living vine. ••.».. 50 

CHAPTER IV. 

The morning star of the Reformation. — The Church ready 
and anxious for Reformation. — John Wickliffe, the first 
Reformer. — Wickliffe' s preparation for his work. — Con- 
troversy with the mendicant friars. — Refusal to pay tribute 
to the Pope. — Summary of Wickliffe's doctrines. — State- 
ment of the doctrine of justification by faith. — Sound 
doctrine preached 500 years ago. — Wickliffe first brought 
to trial for heresy. — He denounces the friars on his sick 
bed. — His second trial. — His translation of the Bible. 
His third trial. — Is expelled from Oxford, but continues 
his labors. — His death. — Number and zeal of Wickliffe's 
disciples. — The fires of martyrdom kindle the fire of 
reformation 73 

CHAPTER V. 

The Church of England during the reign of Henry VIII. — 

Reformation desired. — Obstacles in the way of obtaining 
it. — God provides a leader for the reforming party. — 
Causes that led Henry VIII. to quarrel with the Pope. — 
Henry's efforts to keep on friendly terms. — His failure, 
and open rupture. Henry is forced to aid in reformation 
against his will. — Important improvements allowed by 
the king. — The wrath of man overruled to promote the 
glory of God 95 



CONTENTS. IX 



CHAPTER VI. 



The Reformation completed by Edward VI. and Archbishop 
Cranmer. — Thoroughness of Cranmer's reforms. — Ex- 
tent of the refonns, and mode of accomplishing them. — 
Removal of images from the Chm^ches. — Cranmer's 
moderation in reforming the Prayer Book. — Alterations 
which were made in the Prayer Book. — Instractions to 
the clergy. — Favor shown to foreign reformers. — Pro- 
position for a general confederation of all Protestant 
Churches. — Cranmer's plan the only feasible one ever 
proposed. — Cranmer did not found a new Church. 108 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Church in trouble during the reign of Mary".— Arrests 
of the Bishops. — Preaching forbidden. — Mary promises 
submission to Rome. — She begins the persecutions. — 
Rogers, Hooper, Latimer and Ridley burnt alive. — 
Cranmer's trial. — His degradation from office. — His 
recantation. — Is condemned to be burnt. — Takes back 
his recantation. — Mary's persecutions estabh'shed the 
reformation more firmly 123 



CHAPTER Vm. 

The Church during the reign of Elizabeth. — Romish Bishops 
removed. — The succession continued. — Fable of the 
"Nag's Head" ordination. — The consecrations vahd. — 
The Bishops were exiled but not degraded by Mary. — 
Only one Church in England in the first of Elizabeth's 
reign. — Disputes about trifles. — Want of charity. — 
Religious and political questions closely connected. — 
Quarrel about surplices. — Strictness of Elizabeth. — Sign 
of the cross in Baptism. — Organs. — Church music. — Right 
of choosing ministers. — Want of presbytery. — The Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church grant more than the Puritans 
asked 136 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IX. 

The triumph of the Puritan party. — High views on the 
divine right of kings. — The Bishops take sides with the 
king. — Bishops opposed on political grounds. — Puritans 
ask further concessions — some are granted. — King 
James' Bible. — Sunday sports permitted. — Inflexibility 
of Archbishop Laud. — The Long Parliament not a Pres- 
byterian body. — Puritans attempt to destroy the Church, 
but do not succeed 157 

CHAPTER X. 

The results of Puritan dominion. — The clergy ejected. — 
Use of the Prayer Book prohibited. — Organs and sur- 
plices forbidden. — Violence of fanaticism. — Sects mul- 
tiply. — The ministry usurped by ignorant enthusiasts. — 
Various sects permanently organized. — The evils of di- 
vision fastened on the generations to come. — The reaction 
from Puritan strictness to great laxity, and then to cold- 
ness and formalism. — First intentions and efforts of the 
Wesleys. — Peculiarities of Mr. Wesley's discipline. — 
The first Methodists were all members of the Church of 
England. — Wesley's advice to the Methodists, not to 
separate from the English Church. — How the American 
Methodists came to separate 169 

CHAPTER XI. 

Organization of the Protestant Episcopal Church. — Society 
for the Propagation of the Gospel. — Opposition of the 
Puritans to the appointment of American Bishops. — 
Difficulties under which the Church in the colonies 
labored. — Troubles about obtaining Bishops after the 
Revolution. — Complete organization of the New Na- 
tional Church. — The right to separate was the puritan 
principle. — Various divisions that have grown out of it. — 
Baptists, Quakers, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and 
Methodists all have divided and subdivided since their 
separation from the Church of England. — The Church 
of England never divided. — The Protestant Episcopal 
Church has continued one Church and must so continue 
as long as she exists 186 



CHAPTER I. 



The Church of Christ i^st have a History. — ^Advantages of 
kQowing that history.— The Church the same in all ages. 
Organization of the Protestant Episcopal Church. — The 
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States one 
with the Church of England in doctrine and fellowship. — 
Origin of the Church of England. — Founded in the days 
of the Apostles, or very near them. — St. Paul prohably 
the founder. — Origin of the British Councils and estab- 
lishment of Schools of Theology. — Relapse into Paganism, 
and return to Christianity. — Labors of Augustine. — Re- 
fusal of the British Christians to submit to him. — The 
usurpation of the Bishop of Rome gradual. 

The Church which Christ founded^ and which 
the Apostles more completely established, was, 
from its first beginning, an organized body of 
believers ; it was an association of living men 
and women, bound by solemn obligations not 
only to believe and to suffer but also to act ; 
it was a Church Militant, and " conquer or 
die " was one of the laws of its existence. Of 
course the Church must have a History ; it did 
not die, but it conquered and lived, and the 
record of its conquests is its history. A 

(11) 



12 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

knowledge of this history must be useful to 
every member of Christ's Church ; for, as we 
read the record of the days when the Church 
increased and prospered, we may learn the 
causes which will make it increase and prosper 
now ; when we trace its corruption and decline, 
we are admonished to avoid those errors in doc- 
trine and practice which would cause its decline 
now ; as we learn what was the belief of the 
Church in its best and purest days, we perceive 
the advantages of holding to sound doctrine 
and strict discipline ; and as we trace the close 
connexion between corruption in manners and 
errors in doctrine, we see the necessity of con- 
tending earnestly for the faith once deliv- 
ered to the Saints. Indeed we can hardly have 
that certainty that we are holding to the true 
doctrines of the Christian religion, which every 
Christian ought to possess, unless we know 
something of the various heresies which have 
been denounced and exposed by the Church in 
past ages, and have learned when and how the 
faith which the Apostles believed and taught 
has overcome all that opposed it and become 
firmly established as the undisputed and indis- 
putable truth of God. 



OF THE CHURCH. 13 

It behooves Christians in this age and coun- 
try to inform themselves in regard to Church 
History for another reason. We find ourselves 
everywhere surrounded by an array of rival 
societies, all more or less opposed to each 
other — varying in belief, differing in organiza- 
tion — and yet each one claiming to be the true 
Church which Christ founded, and nearer to the 
Apostolic model than any of its rivals. Each 
Christian must decide upon the claims of these 
opposing denominations before he unites with 
either of them, or he must without reflection and 
guided solely by prejudice or whim, determine 
to cast in his lot with some one of them for 
better or for worse. If he be a man of reflec- 
tion, and desirous to arrive at the truth in regard 
to the claims of these various denominations, 
what plan more simple or more satisfactory than 
to commence his inquiry by asking '''Where and 
when did this or that denomination come into 
existence ? " What light does History throw 
on its claim of being a branch of the Church 
which Christ founded ? Did Christ and his 
Apostles organize it, or was it the offspring of 
later days and the work of uninspired men ? 

The main object of this tract is to furnish 



14 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

the members of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church in this country with such an amount 
of certain historical information as may satisfy 
them that the Church to which they belong 
has been in existence as an organiT^ed^ visible^ 
living y and acting body of professed Christians, 
from the days of the Apostles down to the 
present time ; that it has always held, taught 
and practised the fundamental articles of 
Christian faith and morals as laid down in the 
Gospel, and that it has never materially 
altered the organized form which the Apostles 
gave to it ; in a word, that the Church of which 
we are members to-day, is identical with the 
one which the Apostles planted ; that it is as 
truly the same church as the babe, the youth, 
the mature man and the grey-headed grandsire 
are only different ages and developments of one 
and the same individual. 

The Protestant Episcopal Church in the 
United States has been in existence as a sepa- 
rate and independent organization only from 
the time of the American Kevolution ; but it 
was not organized as a new Church at that 
time — very far from it. Its members had all 
been, previously to its separate organization^ 



OF THE CHURCH. 15 

members of the Church of England ; its min- 
isters had all been ordained by Bishops of the 
English Church; its doctrines and worship were 
those of the Church of England^ and it was in 
all respects part and parcel of that Church, 
though greatly neglected, and laboring under 
many disadvantages. 

Very shortly after the Revolution, in the year 
1785; and again in 1786, the representatives of 
the Churches in the several states assembled 
in Convention, addressed an earnest and 
respectful memorial to the Archbishops of the 
Church of England, representing the diffi- 
culties and disadvantages under which the 
Churches in the United States were placed by 
the political changes that had been effected, 
and requesting them to consecrate Bishops for 
this country, so as to complete our organiza- 
tion as an independent branch of the Church. 
In this memorial they stated that the Church 
in this country did not propose to depart from 
the principles of the Church of England, nor 
to separate from the communion of that 
Church, nor to make any alterations in the 
doctrines, worship or organization of the 
Church; except such as were necessary to 



16 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

accommodate it to the different circumstances 
in which it had been placed by the political 
changes of the Kevolution.* After some de- 
lay (the principal object of which was to give 

* The object of the Petition which was addressed to the 
Most Rev. and Rt. Rev. the Archbishops of Canterbury 
and York and the Bishops of the Church of England is thus 
stated in the Preamble — " When it pleased the Supreme 
Ruler of the universe that this part of the British empire 
should be free, sovereign and independent, it became the 
most important concern of the members of our communion 
to provide for its continuance : And while in accomplishing 
this they kept in view that wise and liberal part of the 
system of the Church of England which excludes as well 
the claiming as the acknowledging of such spiritual subjec- 
tion as may be inconsistent with the civil duties of her 
children, it was nevertheless their earnest desire and reso- 
lution to retain the venerable form of Episcopal Govern- 
ment, handed down to them, as they conceived, from the 
time of the Apostles, and endeared to them by the remem- 
brance of the holy Bishops of the primitive Church, of the 
blessed Martyrs who reformed the doctrine and worship of 
the Church of England, and of the many great and pious 
prelates who have adorned that Church in every succeeding 
age. But however general the desire of completing the 
orders of our Ministry, so diffused and unconnected were 
the members of our communion over this extensive country 
that much time and negotiation were necessary for the 
forming a representative body of the greater number of the 
Episcopalians in these States; and owing to the same 
causes, it was not until this Convention, that suflScient pow- 
ers could be procured for the addressing your Lordships on 
this subject." — Journal of Convmtion of 1785 in Church 
Mevietv, Vol. XL p. 655, 

In 1786 the Convention says — "We are unanimous and 
explicit in assuring your Lordships that we neither have 
departed nor propose to depart from the doctrines of your 



OF THE CHURCH. 17 

the English Bishops the fullest proof that we 
did not intend to depart from the doctrines or 
communion of the Church of England^) a suf- 
ficient number of Bishops were consecrated for 
the United States, and the Church in this 
country was completely organized according to 
the principles which it had held all along, and 
took the name of " the Protestant Episcopal 
Church in the United States of America." 
Since its separate organization there has always 
been the most friendly feeling between the 
English and the American Churches ; the 
Clergy of the American Church are invited to 
officiate in English Churches and English Cler 
gymen can and do hold parishes in the United 
States.'*' In the plainest and most emphatic 
manner, both in public acts and in private in- 
tercourse, each Church has affirmed and does 
continually affirm that they stand to each other 



Church. We have retained the same discipline and forms 
of worship as far as was consistent with our civil constitu- 
tions;" * * * '^ ^ Journal of Convention VI %Q — Church 
Beview, Vol. XII. p. 148. 

* Since 1850, Bishops of the Church of England have 
been, present at and assisted in the consecration of four 
Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal church, viz : Bishops 
Horatio Potter, Atkinson, Davis, and Wainwright. 
2 



IS HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

in the exact position of Mother and Daughter — 
not as rivals J for their aims are the same — not 
as opponents J for they hold common principles 
—not as separatists^ for they are one Family, 
one Communion, one as being each alike a 
Branch of Christ's living Vine, the Holy 
CathoUc Church.^^ 

Having now shown that the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church in the United States is really 
one with the Church of England, we are pre- 
pared for the next step in our historical inves- 
tigation, which is, to inquire when did the 
Church of England originate and hy whom was 
it organized. 

The Church existed in England and was 
recognized as the National Church when this 
country was first settled, for the Puritans came 
to New England to avoid conforming to its 
requirements. It existed in the time of Queen 



*In October, 1853, a delegation from the venerable 
" Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 
Parts," composed of one Bishop and three Presbyters, 
attended the General Convention of the Protestant Episco- 
pal Church and the meeting of the Board of Missions held 
at the same time, — returning the courtesy shown by 
members of our House of Bishops in attending the one 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Society celebrated 
in London. 



OF THE CHURCH. 19 

Elizabeth, for under her the use of the present 
Prayer Book was fully established. It existed 
in the time of Henry the Eighth, for he 
assisted to throw off the authority of the Pope. 
It existed hefore Henry the Eighth, or there 
would have been nothing for the Pope to lord 
it over. It existed in the days of William the 
Conqueror, or there would have been no Bish- 
oprics for him to fill with foreign ecclesiastics. 
It existed in the year 596, for in that year Popo 
Gregory sent Augustine with forty monks to 
convert the Saxons, and when he came he 
found Bishops and Clergy and Churches among 
the Britons, who would not own his authority 
nor submit to his rule. 

The first fact which we shall regard as a set- 
tied and certain matter of history is this, that 
a Churchy protected by royal authority and 
statute law, known as the Church of England^ 
has been in existence for twelve hundred years 
at leasts This point will not be argued ; if any 
one doubts or disputes it, let him turn to any 
history of England, and, opening to any period 
during the past twelve hundred years, see how 
far he can read without coming to some notice 
of the Church or of Churchmen. 



20 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

Having established one fact, that the Church 
of England has existed at least four times as 
long as any denomination that dates its exist- 
ence from the period of the Eeformation, we 
shall now try to point out as nearly as possible 
the exact time when it did come into existence. 

The strong probabilities are that the Church 
was organized in Britain in the time of the 
Apostles, and by that one of them (St. Paul) 
who says of himself "^ I suppose that I am not 
a whit behind the very chiefest of the Apos- 
tles/' The reasons which go to support the 
probability of St. Paul's having been the 
founder of the British Church are — first^ Clem- 
ent of Eome (the fellow laborer and friend of 
St. Paul) 5 writing to the Corinthians^ says, 
" Paul^ being a Herald (of the Cross) in the 
Bast and in the West^ preached righteousness 
through the whole world, and went to the 
utmost bounds of the West/' Now if Clement 
had said '^ went to Britain/' we should not 
have said that it was probable that St. Paul 
founded the British Church, but should have 
stated it as a certain fact. The reader will 
soon see how very little this probability falls 
short of being a certainty. The expression 



OF THE CHURCH. 21 

which Clement does use is in reality equivalent 
to saying that St. Paul went to Britain ; for, 
" the utmost bounds of the West '' was a term 
frequently used by writers of that period to 
designate Britain.*^ ^' If these words are to 
be taken in their literal sense/' says Bishop 
Shorty "little doubt can remain that this 
kingdom was converted to Christianity by the 
Apostle to the Gentiles.^'f When it is remem- 
bered that this is the statement of one whom 
St. Paul himself speaks of (Philippians 4:3) 
as one of his ^^ fellow lahorerSj whose names 
are in the Book of Life/' and who^ from per- 
sonal intercourse with the Apostle, must have 
known .in what countries he had preached, we 
perceive that there is but a shade of difference 
in this case between prohahility and absolute 
certainty. This statement of Clement is con- 

* " Fuisti in ultima Occidentis insula" — Thou hast been 
in the last island of the AVest.^ — CaiuUus. 

St. Jerome says that St. Paul imitated the Sun of 
Righteousness in going from one ocean to the other. " Ut 
Evangelium Christi in Occidentis quoque partibus praedi- 
caret " — that he might preach the Gospel of Clirist also in 
the parts of the West. Stillingfleet (Antiquities of the 
British Church, p. 88) produces many other authorities to 
Bhow that Britain was esteemed the extreme West. 

t Short's History, p. 2, 



22 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

firmed by Eusebius, the historian of the early 
Church, Tsho flourished about A. D. 325. He 
says that the Apostles preached in all the 
world, some going to India and some to the 
British Isles, It is also confirmed by Theo- 
doret, who says, ^^ Our fishermen and publicans, 
and the tent-maker (Paul) carried the evan- 
gelical laws to all men, and persuaded not only 
Eomans, and those tributary to them, but also 
Scythians and the Huns, besides the Indians, 
Britons and Gi-ermans, and, in a word, every 
nation and tribe of men to receive the laws of 
the Crucified One/^ From these testimonies 
we are justified in saying that there is the very 
strongest probability that some of the Apostles, 
of whom St. Paul was one, preached the Gos- 
pel in Britain and established the Church there. 
But we have now only to take a single step, 
and, leaving all probabilities behind us, place 
our feet on the firm ground of certain history. 
Whoever planted the Church in Britain, it is 
certain that by the end of the second century 
it was firmly established there ; for, about the 
year 200, TertuUian thus speaks of it — "All 
Spain, and the difierent nations of Graul, and 
the parts of Britain that are inaccessible to 



OF THE CHUBCH. 2S 

the Romans are brought into subjection to 
Christ/' In the year 240 the same statement 
is made in two different passages by Origen, 
one of which reads thus — '^ When did the land 
of Britain agree in the worship of one God 
before the coming of Christ ? When did the 
land of the Moors agree ? When did all 
the world thus agree ? But now, by means 
of the Churches, which occupy the very out- 
posts of the world, the universal earth cries 
out with joy to the Lord of Israel/' In the 
third century, Britain not only had Churches, 
but she had Martyrs also. St. Alban was the 
first martyr to the faith in Britain,^' and his- 
tory has preserved the names of others who 
suffered during the Diocletian persecution, 

* WheD persecution began St. Alban was a Pagan, but his 
humanity would not allow him to refuse an asylum under 
his roof to a proscribed Christian priest. While hospitably 
sheltered there the pious clergyman's religious fervor so 
efifectually won Alban's veneration that he readily received 
instruction in the faith of Jesus. He resided at Verulam, 
afterwards named St. Alban's. The place of his martyrdom 
was the hill overlooking the spot then occupied by that 
ancient city. Here in after times arose the noble abbey of 
St. Alban's, a worthy commemoration of Britain's earliest 
blood-stained testimony against heathen errors. After 
Alban's example many other members of the ancient British 
Church surreiulered their lives rather than deny their 
Saviour. — Horn, in Pass, S. Alhan. — UOieloc. in Bed., p. 36. 



24 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

which extended to all ]3arts of the Roman Em- 
pire. In the year 307^ Constantine the Great, 
who was then commander of the Eoman army 
in Britain, was proclaimed Emperor of Eome, 
and on ascending the throne protected the 
Church by becoming a Christian himself and 
by putting an end to persecution. 

The various heresies that arose at an early 
period required to be examined and condemned 
by the faithful, and for this purpose many Coun- 
cils of Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Authori- 
ties were convened. The records of these coun- 
cils give additional proof of the existence of the 
Church in the British Isles. In the vear 314 
the Council of Aries was called by Constantine, 
among the members of which we find three 
British Bishops. At the famous Council of 
Nice, A. D. 325, bishops from Britain are sup- 
posed to have been present ; but at the Coun- 
cil of Sardica, A. D. 347, and of Ariminum, 
A. D. 450, their presence is clearly established. 
At this latter council most of the British Bish- 
ops refused to receive the allowance made to 
them for their expenses by the emperor, only 
three of them accepting it, which is a proof 
both of the number and the wealth of the 



OF THE CHURCH. 25 

British bishops who were there. The ear- 
liest of the British councils was that of 
Verulam in the year 446 ; which was con- 
vened by Germanus and Lupns^ bishops from 
Gaul, who were invited by the British divines 
to aid them in opposing the Pelagian heresy, 
which had made considerable progress in Brit- 
ain. As the best means of putting an effectual 
stop to these heresies, Germanus and his assist- 
ants established schools of theology, which 
became very famous for producing learned theo- 
logians ; so much so that Bede, who was not 
favorable to the British church, confesses that it 
was well furnished with learned men at the 
coming of Augustine to England in 596. These 
same Bishops, Germanus and Lupus, are said to 
have brought with them into the British 
churches the use of the Gallican liturgy, which 
was derived probably from St. John through 
Polycarp and Irenaeus. The principal differ- 
ences between this and the Roman liturgy, 
were followed by our Reformers, when they 
purified the Prayer Book from Romish corrup- 
tions, in the time of Edward VI. 

From these historical notices of the British 
Church, which have been given, and from others 



26 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

which are confirmatory of these, we are led to the 
conclusion that the British Isles were very 
thoroughly converted to Christianity by the 
middle of the fifth century — that their faith 
was pure, that their churches were numerous 
and well endowed, and that their clergy were 
equal in point of learning and zeal to those of 
the neighboring countries. We also have 
abundant evidence upon two points which are 
of great interest to us of the present day. One 
point is that the early British Church was be- 
yond question Episcopal in its organization, 
i. e., it was governed by Bishops and had three 
orders of ministers ; it also used a written 
Liturgy and not extempore prayers. The othei 
point is, that it was not subject to the author- 
ity of the Koman Church, nor recognized the 
Pope as being superior in authority to their own 
Bishops. It was as independent of foreign 
jurisdiction as the Protestant Episcopal Church 
is at this day. 

But very shortly after the year 450 the bright 
prospects of the British church were darkened by 
the political convulsions then rapidly approach- 
ing, and a fearful storm burst on both Church 
and State. The Koman Empire, becoming 



OF THE CHURCH. 27 

weakened by internal commotions, and not be- 
ing able to defend all its conquered provinces, 
withdrew its armies from Britain, and left the 
country exposed to the attacks of its barbarous 
neighbors, against whom the Britons were not 
able to protect themselves. The consequence 
was that the Saxons, who were then a heathen 
nation, invaded Britain, and after a struggle of 
about a hundred years, succeeded in driving the 
Britons into the mountainous districts, particu- 
larly into that portion now called Wales, and 
in reducing the remainder to a state of servi- 
tude. By this Saxon invasion, the country 
which had been almost entirely Christian under 
the rule of the Romans, was carried back into 
Paganism, its churches destroyed and their 
members scattered and oppressed, except in 
Wales, where the Britons still maintained their 
independence both political and religious. It 
was not long however before the Saxons them- 
selves began to grow weary of their Paganism 
and disposed to accept the Christianity which 
they had been the means of overthrowing in 
Britain. By the marriage of Ethelbert, one 
of their kings, with Bertha, a Christian lady, 
the Chiistian religion and its teachings became 



28 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

known to those in authority, and through her 
influence doubtless they became more indul- 
gent toward the oppressed remnants of the 
British Church.^*^ Influenced probably by what 

"^ Bertha was a daughter of Cherebert, Kicg of the 
Franks. Her family did not allow her to pass over into 
Britain until ample stipulations had teen made for the free 
profession of her holy faith. She was attended by Luidhard, 
Bishop of Soissons in France, and for her accommodation a 
British Church {St. Martin's, situated on the eastern side of 
Canterbury), which had been long ' desecrated by the 
Saxons, was again rendered suitable for Christian worship. 
The following interesting account of St. Martin's Church is 
taken from a rare and valuable work, " The History of the 
Antient and Metropolitical City of Canterbury, civil and 
ecclesiastical, by Edward Hasted, F. R. S. & S. A., Canter- 
bury, 1799," pp. 102 and 103. 

" St. Martin's Church is situated in the eastern extremity 
of the suburb of its own name, standing on the side of the 
hill, a little distance from the high road leading to Deal and 
Sandwich, and within the city's liberty. This Church 
seems indeed very antient, being built, the chancel especial- 
ly, which appears to be of the workmanship of the time, 
mostly of Roman or British bricks ; the noted reliques and 
tokens of old age in any kind of building, whether sacred 
or profane. It consists at present of a nave or body and a 
chancel, having a square tower at the west end of it, in 
which hang three bells. The chancel appears to have been 
the whole of the original building of this church, or oratory, 
and was probably built about the year A. D. 200 ! — that is, 
about the middle space of time when the Christians, both 
Britons and Romans, lived in this island free from all per- 
secutions. The walls of this chancel are built almost 
wholly of British or Roman bricks, laid and placed in a 
regular state in like manner as is observed in other build- 
ings of the Romans in this island, of which those in Dover 
castle are an instance. This church, so much celebrated 



OF THE CHURCH. 29 

he had learned of the favorable disposition of 
the Saxons toward Christianity, Pope Gregory, 
in the year 596, sent Augustine, with forty 
monks, to attempt their conversion. Augustine 
and his companions were received with great 
favor, being permitted to settle at Canterbury, 
and allowed to teach and preach as much as 
they pleased. The success of these missiona- 
ries was very great ; many of the Saxons 
became Christians, among whom were the King 
and nobles, and in a short time after his arrival 
Augustine was consecrated archbishop of Can- 
terbury and more clergy were sent to his assist- 
ance. By the efforts of Augustine and his 
successors all the Saxons were in comparatively 
a short time converted to Christianity, and 

for the great antiquity of it, is supposed by some to have 
been the resort of St. Augustine and his fellow laborers at 
their first arrival ; and by license of King Ethelbcrt, granted 
to them in favor of Queen Bertha his wife, who had this 
church, [which^was] built long before, as Bede says by the 
believing Romans and dedicated to St. Martin, allotted for 
the place of her public devotions. Others suppose that the 
chapel where St. Augustine first celebrated masse was that 
of St. Pancrace within the precincts of the adjoining mon- 
astery. However this may be, it is in general admitted 
that this church, having been in early times a Christian 
oratory, made use of by the believing Romans, was repaired 
and re-consecrated by Luidhard, B^hop of Soissons (who 
had attended Queen Bertha from France when she married 
King Ethelbert), and was dedicated to St. Martin." 



30 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

churches composed of the Saxon converts^ were 
again organized throughout the whole land. 
Before Augustine's death^ which took place in 
the year 605; he made an eifort to unite the 
Saxon churches which he had founded with the 
British churches which were in existence when 
he came to England, but this effort proved 
unsuccessful at that time. Having invited the 
British divines to a conference, he addressed 
them as follows — " In many things ye act 
contrary to our customs, and to those of the 
universal church ; yet if in these three respects 
ye wiirobey me — to celebrate Easter at the 
proper time ; to perform the rite of baptism, 
by which we are born again unto God, accord- 
ing to the custom of the holy Koman and 
Apostolic Church ; and to join with us in preach- 
ing to the English nation the Word of the Lord ; 
all the other things which ye do, although con- 
trary to our customs, we will bear with eq^uan- 
imity.'' To this demand the British Bishops 
replied, ^^ that they would consent to none of 
these things, nor would they acknowledge 
Augustine as their archbishop.'' The British 
divines seem to have based their refusal to con- 
form to the Roman customs in regard to the 



OF THE CHURCH. 31 

time of keeping Easter and the ceremonies in 
Baptism^ on the ground that their customs 
were as ancient and entitled to as much regard 
as those which Augustine followed. And they 
did not wish to submit to his dictation, when 
they had Bishops of their own. The reply of 
Dinooth, Abbot of Bangor, to Augustine, is 
very plain upon this point. He says — "Be 
it known to you, and without doubt, that we 
are all of us obedient and subject to the Church 
of God, and to the Pope of Rome, and to every 
true and godly Christian ; to love every one 
in his degree with perfect charity ; and other 
obedience than this I do not know to be due to 
him whom ye call the Pope, nor that he is the 
^Father of Fathers ;' and this obedience we 
are willing to render to him and to every Chris- 
tian continually. Besides, we are under the 
government of the Bishop of Caerlaon upon 
Usk ; who is, under God, appointed to super- 
intend us, to cause us to continue in the spir- 
itual way/' Augustine's other proposal, that 
they should preach to the Saxons, was a very 
reasonable and Christian-like request ; the 
British divines were guilty of stubbornness and 
want of charity in refusing to accede to it ; 



32 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

but in extenuation it must be remembered that 
the Saxons had oppressed and persecuted them 
and taken away most of their civil and religious 
privileges, so that it was natural for them to 
have much bitterness of feeling still remaining 
toward them. In the course of time this 
unkind temper wore off, and by intermarriage 
and that constant intercourse which always 
takes place between the conquerors and the 
conquered, the Saxon and Briton became final- 
ly blended into one nation and likewise into 
one and the same Church. 

The first effort to bring the British Churches 
under the control of the Eoman Church, was met 
by a prompt and somewhat stubborn refusal to 
submit to any foreign interference, which shows 
most conclusively that the English Church, 
since its foimdation, had not been under the 
control of the Pope, nor in any manner subject 
to his authority. As we proceed with the his- 
tory we shall find that the Bishop of Eome 
continued from the time of Augustine down to 
the Reformation to thrust his authority upon 
the English Church, and that he finally suc- 
ceeded. But it should not be forgotten that, 
if the Roman Church had no right and exer- 



OF THE CHURCH. 33 

cised no control over the English Church for 
the Jirst five liundred years of its existence, 
the power which the Pope afterward gained in 
England was usurped and unlawful. Having 
been planted by Apostolic hands, it was a com- 
plete Church as much as the Church at Rome 
was when St. Paul wrote his epistle to the 
Eomans, or when he preached to them " at his 
own hired house.'" There is no historical evi- 
dence that the Bishop of Rome possessed any 
authority out of his own province for a consid- 
erable period ; and the means by which he 
afterward rose to the height of universal 
empire over things temporal and spiritual will 
be seen as we progress. We, who claim the 
Church of England as our spiritual mother, 
may well be thankful that amid the fires of 
persecution and the ravages of barbarian in- 
vaders, the Providence of God has preserved to 
us a few plain memorials of the Church of our 
fathers as it was in the days of its virgin puri- 
ty, as it was in the days of Apostles and Mar- 
tyrs. We perceive that it was then under the 
care of its own Bishops, and having the same 
outward organization that it has now ; we 
learn from the decisions of Councils where 



34 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

British Bishops were present^ that they held to 
the same simple and orthodox creeds which we 
read in every service now ; and we may count 
it our peculiar glory that we stand now where 
our fathers stood eighteen hundred years ago, — 
"on the foundation of the Apostles and Proph- 
ets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner- 
stone/' — holding neither more nor less than the 
faith which they taught, and united in the 
communion which they established. May we 
thus remain forever 



CHAPTEE II. 

The National Churches of Apostolic and primitive times. — 
The Faith, Governm-nit and Ministry the same every- 
where. — Only one Bishop to every large city,, but many 
presbyters and deacons. — All Bishops equal in authority 
and rank. — Provincial and National Churches. — Metro- 
politans. — Each National Church perfect in itself. — 
National Churches at present in existence. — Churches of 
Spain, France, Rome, England. — Rise, fall, and restora- 
tion of the English Church. — Who shall cast a stone at 
herl 

Having traced the history of the English 
Church for five centuries^ showing that in all 
that time it was independent of the Church of 
Kome and of all other churches ; showing also 
how about the year 600 the first step was taken 
towards a connexion with the Koman Church 
by the mission of Augustine to convert the 
Saxons, it now becomes necessary, in order to 
understand the relative position of the English 
and Eoman Churches from the year 600 till the 
Keformation, that we should go back a little 
and inquire into the relations that existed in 
the earliest ages between the various churches 
that were founded by the Apostles. Tho- 
principal churches spoken of in the New Tes- 



36 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

tament are Jerusalem^ Antioch^ Eome, Eplie- 
sus^ Corinth and Philippi ; in the next 
century we find^ besides these, Alexandria and 
Carthage distinguished as prominent churches. 
By the third century we find that these leading 
churches had become, as it were, the centres of 
ecclesiastical authority, and the Bishops of 
smaller churches assembled at the larger and 
more influential one whenever there were cases 
of discipline requiring their attention ; v/hen 
heresies made it necessary to define the faith 
of the Church ; or when it was needful to frame 
rules for its government. Thus, in a very 
natural manner, the Church Catholic or Uni- 
versal became subdivided into different dis- 
tricts, each governed by its own laws in minor 
matters, but all holding the same faith, -^ 

* The Martyr Irenseiis, the friend of Polycarp who was 
St. John's disciple, thus illustrates the unity of the Church 
ill matters of faith : 

" The Church, though disseminated throughout the whole 
world, even unto the ends of the earth, hath received of 
the Apostles the belief in One God, the Father Almighty, 
who made heaven and earth and the seas and all that in 
them is; and in One Christ Jesus the Son of God, who was 
made man for our salvation ; and in the Holy Spirit, who 
through the prophets announced the dispensations [of God], 
the Advent of the beloved Christ Jesus our Lord, his birth 
of a Virgin, his suffering, resurrection from the dead, and 
bodily ascension into heaven, and his coming [again] from 



OF THE CHURCH. 37 

having the same form of government, taught 
by the same ministry, and having such perfect 
harmony and agreement that he who was a 
member of. the Church in one place was 
received as a member of the Church in any 
country however remote ; and he who was a 
minister of the Church in one country was 
permitted to exercise the office of the ministry 
wherever he might go. The Faith of the 
Church at that time is set forth in the two 
creeds which we use in the daily service, and 
which were declared to be the substance of 



the heavens in the glory of the Father, to gather together 
all things in one, to raise up all flesh of mankind, in order 
that, ascending to the invisible Father's will, every knee, of 
things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the 
earth, was to bow to Christ Jesus, our Lord, our God, our 
Saviour, and our King, and every tongue confess unto him, 
and that he may exercise righteous judgment on all, may 
send spiritual wickedness, and the angels that transgressed 
and became apostate, and the impious, unrighteous, wicked 
and blasphemous among men, into eternal fire ; and bestow 
life and immortality and eternal glory on the righteous, the 
pious, and those who observe his commandments and con- 
tinue in his love either from the beginning or from the time 
of their repentance. This preaching, and this faith, (as we 
have said), the Church, though disseminated throughout 
the wLole world, guards as carefully as if she dwelt in 
every l.ouse; believes as if she had but one soul ; and pro- 
claims, teaches and delivers, as if she possessed but one 
mouth." — See Palmer's Ecclrs. Hist. p. 11. 

The attentive reader will notice how closely this state- 
ment resembles the Nicene Creed. 



38 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

what the Apostles taught, and what the whole 
Church believed, at two General Councils, — one 
held in Nice in the year 325 and the other in 
Constantinople in 381. At these two famous 
Councils a large number of Bishops and clergy 
were assembled froni all parts of the Christian 
world, and that fact alone shows that there was 
a perfect unity among all the churches.'*'' At 
the time of these two Councils, when the faith 
of the whole Church was the same, the govern- 
ment of the Church and the orders of the 
ministry were what are now called Episcopal, 
that is, there were three orders or grades of the 
ministry, namely. Bishops, Priests, and Dea- 
cons. The duties which these ministers per- 

* Origen, who wrote before the Council of Nice was assem- 
bled, says, '^ The faith was the same in all the world, men 
professed it with one heart and one soul ; for though there 
were different dialects in the world, yet the power of the 
faith was one and the same. The churches in Germany had 
no other faith and tradition than those in Iberia, or Spain 
or those among the Celts, or in the East or in Egypt, or in 
Libya, or in the middle parts of the world " (by which he 
means Jerusalem and the adjacent churches). But as one 
and the same sun enlightened all t^LQ world, so the preach- 
ing of this truth shined all over and enlightened all that 
were willing to come to the knowledge of the truth. Nor 
did the most eloquent ruler of the Church say any more 
than this (for no one was above his Master), nor the weakest 
diminish anything from this tradition. For the Faith 
being one and the same, he that said most of it could not 
enlarge it, nor he that said least take aDvthing from it." 



OF THE CHURCH. 39 

formed were as follows : Deacons baptized, 
assisted in administering the Communion, 
distributed alms to tlie poor, visited the sick, 
and preached the Gospel. Priests (also called 
Elders and Presbyters) performed the usual 
duties of a Parish minister at the present day, 
preaching, administering the Sacraments, and 
having the general oversight of their particular 
churches. Bisliojps discharged any of the 
duties of the two lower orders, and in addition 
to these duties were entrusted with the 
power of ordaining ministers, with authority 
to direct the Priests and Deacons in the dis- 
'charge of their duties, with the power to try 
ministers who had been guilty of heresy or 
misconduct, to degrade them from their office 
or to excommunicate them if found guilty, 
and, in general, they had the oversight of 
both clergy and laity within the district com- 
mitted to their care. In the city of Kome, for 
instance, there were many churches or congre- 
gations, as the Christians there were very 
numerous ; to each congregation' there was a 
Presbyter and a Deacon (sometimes several of 
each order), but in the whole city there was 
but one Bishop, who had the general oversight 



40 HISTOKICAL SKETCHES 

and government of all the clergy and all the 
churches in and around the city. So also in 
the country there were Bishops who had the 
oversight of the churches and clergy within a 
given district. The Dioceses were much 
smaller in those days than are those of our 
present Bishops^ being usually about the size 
of a modern county. The country was thickly 
settled and Christians were numerous and 
therefore it would have been impracticable for 
one Bishop to have taken the oversight of a 
Diocese as extensive as those of our Bishops. 
It would certainly be desirable if we could 
return to primitive practice in this respect — 
have smaller Dioceses and more Bishops. 

There is every evidence that in the early age 
of the Church all Bishops were equal in rank 
and in authority ; and the principal groimd for 
distinctions^ was the superior worldly position 
which the Bishop of a large city, like Eome or 
Constantinople, would naturally have over one 
who dwelt in some more obscure place. In 
addition to this cause of distinction, was 
another, which works equally in all times and 
all places, — the superior mental and moral qual- 
ities of the man who holds the office. There 



OF THE CHURCH. 41 

were no distinctions and no superiorities among 
the primitive Bishops except such as sprung 
from these two causes. 

In the fourth century^ after Christians had 
been freed from persecution by the favor of the 
Emperor Constantino^ the churches in different 
parts of the world were ' enabled to perfect 
their arrangements for mutual intercourse and 
necessary legislation ; and therefore we find 
that the different portions of the Church began 
about this time to take the form of provincial 
or national churches^ legislating for themselves 
in minor matters^ while they all submitted to 
the decisions of the general councils. For 
example^ the churches within the bounds of 
Judea assembled at Jerusalem whenever there 
were objects of sufficient importance to call 
them together ; and thus these churches were 
known in history as the " Church of Jerusalem.^' 
The churches in Egypt* received their title 
from their principal church and went by the 
name of the ^^ Church of Alexandria." The 
churches in Grreece, Macedonia and Asia Minor 
were known as the " Church of Constantinople/' 
because the Bishop of that city had a certain 
jurisdiction over all the Bishops in those coun- 



42 HISTOKICAL SKETCHES 

tries. The churches in Italy were in like man- 
ner under tne jurisdiction of the Bishop of Kome 
and were known as the ^^ Church of Rome." 
So the churches in Spain^ in France (Gaul) and 
in Britain^ had each their separate and indepen- 
dent organization, and were recognized as '^ the 
Church'' of their respective countries. 

All Bishops, in the early ages of the 
Church, being equal in rank, no Bishop had 
any right to intrude into the diocese of another^ 
nor to exercise the functions of his office as a 
Bishop beyond the limits of the diocese which 
he was consecrated to preside over.'*^ But for 
the purpose of more conveniently exercising 
discipline, the Bishops of the principal churches 
in each country or province were entrusted by 
common consent wdth certain rights and privi- 
leges above the rest of their brethren. They 
usually had some distinctive title, such as arch- 
bishop, primate, patriarch, metropolitan, or 
pope; they summoned the Bishops of their 
province to meet in councils, they commonly 

*One of the canons called apostolical is as follows — 
''Let not a Bishop presume to ordain in cities or villages not 
subject to him, and if he he convicted of doing so without 
consent of those to whom such places belong, let him, and 
those whom he has ordained, he deposed." 



OF THE CHURCH. 43 

presided in those councils ; they received and 
examined accusations against the Bishops ; 
they decided such cases of doctrine or discipline 
as were referred to them^ and their decisions 
were usually acquiesced in and regarded as a 
final settlement of the matter in dispute. 

TheBishop of Jerusalem had this sort of pre- 
eminence over all the other Bishops in Judea ; 
the Bishop of Alexandria over all the Bishops 
in Egypt^ the Bishop of Kome over all the 
Bishops in Italy^ and in all other countries and 
provinces the same arrangement was made by 
which some one Bishop was invested with a 
certain authority over the other Bishops^ but 
yet it was well understood that these presiding 
Bishops were not thereby constituted a higher 
order of the Ministry, nor did they pretend to 
any other rank than that of Bishops. 

It will readily be understood that each nation 
which had been converted to Christianity had a 
complete and perfect national Church formed 
within its boundaries. There were first the 
separate congregations in the cities and villages, 
each having its presbyters and deacons ; next 
there were the Bishops in every large city or 
district, who had the oversight of both clergy 



44 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

and laity ; and^ as the centre of unity or the 
working head of all ecclesiastical matters^ there 
was the Metropolitan or Bishop of the chief 
city^ who^ while he discharged the proper 
duties of liis office in his own diocese, had also 
the general direction and leadership of all that 
concerned the Church in the whole nation. 

It may also be very clearly perceived how each 
National Church could be perfectly independent 
of all other churches and yet none differ from 
another in doctrine or organization or worship, 
in any important particular ; no Church being 
either a rival or an opponent of any other, but 
on the contrary each maintaining the most 
friendly and brotherly relations ^\4th all the 
others. 

Several of these National Churches are in 
existence at the present time, while others 
have become extinct. The churchesof Jerusa- 
lem and Alexandria, once so distinguished, 
have been overrun by Mahometanism and have 
lost their independence as national Churches. 

The Chur-^h of Carthage, once so numerous 
and so zealr is, has been utterly destroyed. 

The S;'rian Church in India (planted 
by St. Thomas as tradition asserts), after 



OF THE CHURCH. 45 

centuries of oppression by Pagans and Ma- 
hometans^ still has a remnant left, holding 
the simple faith of the Apostles' creed, wor- 
shipping according to their ancient liturgy, 
and showing their line of Bishops back to the 
Apostle St. Thomas. 

The Church of Constantinople is still in ex- 
istence, and, in numbers at least, as powerful 
as in her best days, though she has to a great 
extent lost the spirit of true religion. It is 
now known as the Greek Church, the 
Bishop of Constantinople having now the 
same rank and title which he had in ancient 
times, namely, ^^ Patriarch of the Eastern 
Church.'' {Note — The Eussian branch of 
the Greek Church is a national church, but of 
later origin than the Church of Constantinople.) 
This church has departed somewhat from the 
true spirit of the Gospel and has added many 
corruptions to the doctrines and practices 
which it held in the Apostolic days, but still 
it has the two creeds as the foundation of its 
faith, and there are strong indications (par- 
ticularly in the Kingdom of Greece) that it will 
sooncast off the additions which are the source 
of all its errors, and will reform itself by going 
back to the simplicity of its early faith. 



46 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

The Church of Spain is still in existence, 
though for many centuries it has been sunk 
in the grossest corruption of faith and of 
practice, and has been fettered by the most 
servile compliance with the assumptions and 
the tyranny of the Bishop of Kome. 

The Gallican Church or Church of France is 
also in existence, and also in subjection to the 
French Bishop of Eome^yet the morality of the 
Church has always been much higher than that 
of Spain or of Kome, and the authority of the 
Pope has not been received and at this time is 
not acknowledged in France to as great an 
extent as in Spain or Italy. 

The Church of Eome is in existence, as all 
know, and not content within the bounds of 
his primitive diocese, nor even satisfied with the 
honorabledistinction of being the MetroDolitan 
of Italy, the Bishop of Kome has exalted him- 
self step by step above all his brethren in the 
Episcopal office, and claims the title and rights of 
Universal Bishop ; while the Church of which 
he is the head, in spite of Scripture and of 
History, sets up the preposterous claim of being 
the Mistress and Mother of all churches. Here- 
after it will be shown in what manner the Bishop 



OF THE CHURCH, 47 

which they still retain over a large portion of the 
Christian world. 

Lastj but not least^ among the Apostolic 
Churches is the English Church. Five hun- 
dred years from her first foundation she stood 
in her independence and purity, holding only 
the. simple faith and godly practices whfeh 
she learned from Apostles and their im- 
mediate successors, governed by her own 
Bishops and by canons enacted in her own 
Councils, and acknowledging no superior au- 
thority but that of Christ. For more than 
nine hundred years she submitted little by 
little to the rule of the Roman Bishop and 
adopted the corruptions of the Church of Eome. 
Three hundred and fifty years ago she shook 
off the yoke of bondage, re-asserted her 
original independence, and casting off the cor- 
ruption, false doctrine and superstition w^hich 
had so deformed her while she was in bondage 
to Rome, she went back to the simple creeds 
which all held from the beginning of Christian- 
ity, to the simple liturgy which Apostles and 
martyrs had used, and to the pure morality 
which the Gospel enjoined at first, determined 
thenceforward to build on no foundation but 



48 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

that of Christ and his Apostles. It is a 
grievous stain upon the English Church that 
for nearly a thousand years she listened to the 
enticing words of her erring sister at Eome ; 
but who is he that will venture to cast a stone 
at her for so doing ? Where is the man who 
cafl trace his spiritual genealogy through a 
pure and uncorrupted church back to the days 
of the Apostles ? If there be such a one let 
him produce the history of Ms church free 
from all stain of false doctrine or evil practice, 
and he shall be allowed to accuse the English 
Church and bring her into judgment for any 
and all her past errors. But he who cannot 
find his Church in existence at all before the 
days of Luther and Calvin^ unless in the Church 
of Borne ^ to which Church both Luther and 
Calvin belonged at first, that man cannot be 
allowed, without being challenged for gross 
inconsistency, to accuse the English Church of 
haying once been in subjection to Kome. 
• The Church of England, like the Patriach Job, 
was once in great prosperity, happy in the abun- 
dant numbers of her spiritual children, and full of 
the blessing of the Lord ; like Job she was 
tried with great and sore temptations, the 



OF-^THE CHURCH. 49 

possession of riches and power ; like Job she 
partly fell and yet had grace sufficient not to let 
go her trust in her Eedeenier ; like Job she 
awoke at last to the knowledge of her errors^ 
confessed and forsook her sins^ and then the 
Lord raised her from her humiKation, com- 
forted her with the tokens of his love and favor, 
and sent her forth, chastened and made wiser 
by sorrow, to execute His purposes of love and 
mercy. 

4 



CHAPTER III. 



The period of the decline of the English Churclx. — The 
Church quite pure in the time of Augustine. — Origin of 
using Latin in the Liturgy — its results. — Marriage of the 
Clergy prohibited, though customary at tirst. — Immimi- 
ties granted to the Monasteries. — Their corruptions. — 
The good that they effected. — The Monasteries the schools 
of the middle ages. — Rise of the Papal authority in Eng- 
land. — The Pope's oppressive taxation of the English 
Church. — Changes in faith introduced by Papal author- 
ity. — Progress of error slow but constant. — The evil in 
the Church always more notorious than the good. — The 
English Church the purest in Western Europe. — Proofs 
tha^ the Church was a livuig vine. 

The first step leading to a connexion between 
the Church of England and the Pope of Kome, 
was the mission of Augustine to convert the 
Saxons, in the year 596 ; the final separation 
of the Eni>:lish Church from the Eoman Pon- 
tiff took place in the year 1534. ••*' This period 
of nine hundred and thirty-eight years, during 
which the English Church was more or less in 
subjection to the authority of the Pope, is now 
to be examined ; and the examination will not 

*In 1534: an act of Parliament was passed rejecting the 
Pope's supremacy, which amounted to a total separation 
from the Roman Church. 
(50) 



OF THE CHURCH. 51 

be a pleasant one. It can never be gratifying 
to a Christian, who has drawn his knowl- 
edge of the holy doctrines and the ennobling 
precepts of Christianity from the study of the 
Word of God and from the practice and teach- 
ing of a pure Churchy to examine a record 
which shows how one false doctrine after 
another was received and taught by those whose 
especial duty it was to protect the faith from 
innovation ; nor can it be pleasant to learn 
that through successive ages multitudes of 
those who had been consecrated as Christ's 
soldiers and servants in baptism were notorious- 
ly wicked and profligate men. But though it 
is not pleasant to examine this period in the 
history of the Church, it is necessary that it 
should be examined, if we would know the 
truth, or if we are to profit by the lessons of 
history. And it is necessary that we should 
examine the history of this period, putting 
aside, as far as the infirmity of human nature 
will permit, all spirit of unfair partizanship, 
all disposition to conceal any facts that may not 
be agreeable to us, and all tendency to make 
the most of isolated examples that may bear 
strongly in favor of our own views of truth. 



52 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

The period of Papal domination in England 
was the period of the decline of the English 
Church. At the time of Augustine's mission, 
the faith of the Eoman Church was very little 
altered from what it was in the time of the 
Apostles ; and the fact that Pope Gregory was 
so anxious to see the Saxons converted, and 
that Augustine and his fellow-laborers were 
so ready to undertake a mission fraught 
perhaps with great dangers, and certainly 
with great diflS-Culties, is a conclusive proof 
that they were imbued with the true self- 
denying spirit of the gospel, — that they 
remembered and were willing to execute the 
great Apostolic commission, "Go ye into all 
the world and preach the gospel to every crea- 
ture/' The fact that the British Christians 
whom they found in England agreed with them 
on almost all points, is also a proof that they 
had not seriously departed from the original 
faith of the Church. But errors soon began to 
creep into the teaching of the Church, and 
along with those errors came also ungodly 
practices, which continued to grow worse and 
worse for a long space of time until their con- 
sequences became so insufferable that error 



OF THE CHURCH. 53 

was no longer able to retain its bold^ and a 
reformation was demanded and was effected. 

One of the worst consequences that followed 
the mission of Augustine was the practice of 
saying the prayers and conducting the public 
service of the Church in the Latin language ; 
for although the priests were strictly enjoined 
to preach every Sunday, and to explain the 
Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the gospel to 
the people, yet it is very apparent to us that 
nothing could be better calculated to deprive 
the people at large of the light and advantages 
of the gospel, than having the public devotions 
in a language which they did not understand. 
And yet the origin of this use of Latin in the 
services of the Church was very simple and 
natural ; for the Eoman missionaries were 
accustomed to use it as their native tongue^ 
and all their books were written in that lan- 
guage. The Saxons being in a state of bar- 
barism and having no literature of their own, 
it was very natural that when Augustine and 
his successors attempted to instruct them, they 
should teach them in the language with which 
the missionaries themselves were most familiar. 
But the evils of this course were soon apparent. 



54 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

for by the time of Alfred the Great (A. D. 871 
to 901), according to the testimony of the 
King himself, there were very few persons in 
the Kingdom who could understand the pray- 
ers or could translate a letter from Latin into 
English. Alfred did very much to promote 
learning ; he invited eminent scholars from all 
parts, and gave them honors and dignities ; he 
established a public school for the education of 
his son Ethelweard and the young nobility ; he 
translated into the Saxon language the works 
of Orosius, Boethius, and the ecclesiastical 
history of the venerable Bede, and for the 
instruction of the clergy he also translated the 
Pastoral of Grregory. So thorough were the 
measures adopted by Alfred to promote learn- 
ing, that during the next forty years thrcf^ 
Kings of other countries, Alan of Bretagne, 
Louis of France, and Haco of Norway, were 
sent to England to be educated, and the same 
degree of ignorance as prevailed before Alfred's 
time was never again known in England. 

Another evil that followed the introduction 
of the Roman authority into Britain, was the 
establishment of monasteries^ and the con- 
tinued efforts to prevent the raarriage of tJie 



OF THE CHURCH. 56 

clergy. The marriage of the clergy had been 
objected to much earlier than the time of 
Augustine^ but it had not been positively for- 
bidden as it was afterwards ; so also there seem 
to have been monastic establishments even 
among the British Christians before Augus- 
tine's arrival^ but their evil tendencies were 
not developed till some time afterward. The 
British Church before the time of Augustine 
appears to have allowed the clergy to marry ; 
and the Irish Church, which was closely con- 
nected with the British, certainly gave clergy- 
men that liberty, for in the canons of St. 
Patrick and other Irish Bishops, set forth 
A. D. 456, directions are given in regard to the 
conduct of the loives of the clergy. St. Patrick 
declares that he was the son of Calphurnius, a 
deacon, and the grandson of Potitus, a priest. 
But the opinion that marriage, especially 
among the clergy, was a hindrance to piety, 
was very general in all parts of the Christian 
world at an early day. The Koman Church 
was strongly opposed to the marriage of the 
clergy, and the grand reason of the continued 
and determined oiDposition of the Popes to the 
practice, was found in the fact that the married 



56 HISTOEICAL SKETCHES 

clergy, having ties of kindred and family, were 
strongly attached to their homes and their 
country ; while those who were unmarried, 
having no such ties, were naore readily subject 
to the Pope's authority, and less afraid of the 
consequences of carrying out Ms views when 
they .were in opposition to those of their tem- 
poral sovereign, or even against the commands 
of their Bishops. 

We find therefore that the monks were, 
from the time of Augustine, the especial 
favorites of the Popes^ and that the most 
extraordinary privileges and immunities were 
granted to them. The following will serve 
as a sample : In the privileges granted by 
Pope Agatho to the monastery of Medham- 
sted, occurs this passage, "That neither king, 
bishop, earl, nor any one else, shall have any tax 
or tribute, or exact any military or other ser- 
vice from the abbey of Medhamsted. That 
the Bishop of the diocese shall not dare to 
ordain J consecrate, or do any thing in the abbey 
(unless at the request of the abbot), or exact 
from it any episcopal or synodical fine or tax 
of any description/' Thus the monks, holding 
their privileges directly from the Pope and 



OF THE CHURCH. 57 

being released in many cases from obedience to 
any one else^ became the strongest adherents 
of the Papacy and the most zealous defenders 
of all the false teachings and unlawful assump- 
tions of the Komish Church and Bishop. 

Being thus placed beyond all control except 
that of the Superiors whom they chose from 
among their own number^ they^ after a while, 
became lax in morals^ and instead of becoming 
hoher by their seclusion from the world, they 
were guilty of intemperance and licentiousness 
and of all the self-indulgent practices that 
everywhere follow the possession of wealth 
without the restraints of authority and public 
opinion. The Monasteries finally became the 
most corrupt portion of the Church, and were 
suppressed by Henry VIII. in 1535 with the 
cordial approval of the large majority of the 
nation. But we should do great injustice to 
the memory of many worthy men, if we were 
not to mention the good that was effected by 
these monastic establishments. The notion 
that persons of either sex could serve God 
better by withdrawing from all the relations of 
domestic and social life, and spending their 
time in partial solitude, was almost universal 



58 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

in the early ages of Christianity. It was a 
great mistake^ and the Bible gives no coun- 
tenance to any such views^ but in examining 
the conduct of the men who founded monaster- 
ies and dwelt in them, we must bear in mind the 
opinions and customs of the age they hved in. 
In rude and barbarous times, when the 
majority of the people were often engaged in 
war, as was the case among the early Saxons, 
it was natural that the most devout persons 
should seek a more quiet and Christian mode 
of life, by forming rehgious estabhshments such 
as the early monasteries. The monks were not 
usually required to perform milit^ary service, 
and their houses were generally safe from the 
attacks of either party in time of war ; thus 
the monasteries tended to preserve peace and 
to diminish the horrors of war by giving an 
asylum to the weak and the defenceless. They 
had large possessions of land which they rented 
to the poorer people or cultivated themselves ; 
thus they encouraged the peaceful pursuits of 
agriculture, and promoted habits of industry 
by insuring their tenants a fair return for their 
labor and immunity from the rapacity and 
extortion of the feudal lords. They promoted 



OF THE CHURCH. 59 

hospitality by always giving food and shelter 
to any one who asked for it^ whether he were 
beggar or king. They supported large numbers 
of the most destitute in their neighborhood by 
daily distribution of food. They advanced 
manufactures by having the means to pay for 
the erection aud adornment of those splendid 
structures which have never been equalled 
since their times. But as study and devotion 
were the professed objects to which the monks 
devoted their lives^ so the great benefit that 
they conferred on society was the preservation 
and promotion of learning. The monasteries 
were almost the only schools of the middle 
ages ; very few books were to be found outside 
of their limits ; hardly any writers were known 
in those days save the monks ; almost every 
copy of the Holy Scriptures or of the Liturgy 
was executed within the walls of a monastery ; 
and last^ but not least^ it is very plain from the 
records of those times that however far the 
majority of the monks may have failed of 
adorning their Christian profession by holy 
lives^ yet there were never wanting men among 
them of true piety and real devotion. 

The most conspicuous of the evils that fol- 



60 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

lowed the mission of Augustine was the 
acknowledgment of the authority of the Pope in 
England. We have seen that the British 
Church would not and did not acknowledge 
Pope Gregory as their superior ; but Augustine, 
having been sent by him, naturally felt that 
he owed an allegiance to his former superior, 
and hence he consulted the Pope frequently 
and paid great deference to his decisions. The 
opinion that, as the Popes were the successors 
of St. Peter, and as St. Peter held the keys of 
heaven, so the Popes were the highest Church 
authority on the earth, was rapidly gaining 
ground in Western Europe at this time, and 
England, following the example of Augustine, 
very naturally adopted the prevailing opinion. 

Pope Gregory directed Augustine to apply to 
the Archbishop of Aries, in France, for conse- 
cration as a Bishop, and then desired him 
(Augustine) to consecrate twelve Bishops for 
England, vesting him with the authority of 
Archbishop over them. The supervision over 
the English Bishops which Gregory thus 
acquired was never relinquished by any suc- 
ceeding Pope till the time of the Keformation. 

Tn A. D. 793, Offa, king of Mercia, made a 



OF THE CHURCH. 61 

pilgrimage to Kome, and while there made a 
grant of one penny yearly from every family 
in his kingdom, for the use of the English 
school at Kome, which was afterward considered 
as a tribute to the Pope and was paid pretty 
regularly for many centuries. This was the 
first pecuniary acknowledgment of the Papal 
supremacy, and if the Popes had been content 
with this tribute, it is quite probable that they 
might still be holding supremacy, in spiritual 
matters, over the English Church, as they now 
do over the greater part of western Europe. 
But the providence of God, which continually 
brings good out of evil, so ordered events that 
the covetousness of the Popes became one of 
the means of restoring the English Church to 
its primitive independence and purity. More 
anxious to enrich themselves and add to their 
power than to promote the interests of religion, 
the Popes seized upon every plausible pretext 
to levy new taxes upon the Church. Having 
commissioned Augustine to act as Archbishop 
at first, the Pope assumed the right to confirm 
the election of all succeeding Archbishops, and 
for conferring the pall or badge of the Arch- 
bishop's office large sums of money were 



62 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

demanded and paid. From the confirming of 
an Archbishop in his office it was an easy step 
to claim the right of appointing or confirming 
the appointment of the other Bishops^ and this 
abuse of power continued to grow until hardly 
any position of importance could be obtained 
by the clergy^ unless it were either received by 
direct appointment from the Pope, or unless a 
large bribe had been paid to him in some form 
or other. Besides these taxes on preferments, the 
Popes frequently demanded direct taxes from 
all the clergy, and these demands were some- 
times equal to one half of their yearly income. 

The amount of money thus taken out 
of the country and put into the treasury 
of the Popes, was so enormous that it became 
such a serious political evil as could not fail to 
be noticed by every person. In the year 1376 
the sum paid to the Pope was five times as 
much as that paid to the king. 

These exactions caused great discontent, and 
after a while led the people to inquire how the 
Pope came to possess the power of taxing the 
Enghsh Church ; and when inquiry once com- 
menced, it could not be checked by anything 
short of a complete reformation. 



OF THE CHURCH. 63 

It would be tedious and needless to detail all 
the measures that were taken by the different 
Popes to gain authority where they had the 
shadow of a right to any ; it is enough to have 
shown some of the steps by which the Koman 
Bishop came to have authority in a country that 
was never within the limits of his diocese or 
province, and to have indicated the excess to 
which that authority was finally carried. 

It must not be supposed that these assump- 
tions of the Popes were all quietly submitted 
to, and that no one presumed to question their 
right to interfere in the affairs of the English 
Church — by no means ; long and severe was the 
struggle before the Koman Bishops were per- 
mitted to lord it over the rest of their brethren ; 
but the Popes gained the victory, and for several 
centuries before the Reformation the power of 
the Bishops of Rome was more extensive and 
more absolute over England and all western 
Europe than ever was the power of the 
Emperors of Rome. 

The next point to be noticed is the change 
that took place in the faith or doctrines of the 
English Church during its connexion with the 
Roman Church, and the changes that were 



64 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

effected during the same period in the rites and 
ceremonies of the Church and in the morals of 
the clergy and people. These changes may all 
be summed up in one sentence. The Church 
fell into errors in doctrine, into superstition in 
worship, and into gross corruption in morals ; 
she fell from the simplicity and purity of the 
early days of Christianity to the false and dan- 
gerous position of the modern Church of Eome. 
In consequence of the ascendency gained by 
the Popes over the English Bishops, and of the 
authority which they exercised in England, the 
false doctrines and the superstitious observances 
adopted from time to time by the Eoman 
Church were soon believed and imitated in 
England ; while, as the pretensions of the Popes 
increased, the wealth and power of the clergy 
increased in the same ratio, and, rising above 
the wholesome restraint of public opinion, they 
became loose in their morals and careless of 
their duties. 

Errors in doctrine are never very rapid in 
their progress, especially where the faith is pro- 
tected by a liturgy that embodies the great 
fundamental articles of Christianity, and we 
find therefore that the false doctrine was a long 



OF THE CHURCH. 65 

time in overshadoiving the true (for it has 
never happened in any church that had a 
liturgy^ that the true faith was thrown aiuay 
and a false one adopted in its place.) The belief 
in purgatory was made an article of faith in 
the year 1439^ although as early as the middle 
of the third century we find some traces of a 
belief in it. The doctrine of transuhstantiation, 
or the belief that the bread and wine of the 
sacrament are changed by consecration into the 
real body, blood, soul and Divinity of Christ, 
was not adopted in England till after the year 
1000, nor was the idolatrous custom of wor- 
shiping the consecrated bread introduced till 
after that time. The worship of images^ relics, 
and pictures commenced between the years 800 
and 900. Prayers to the Virgin Mary and to 
the Saints began to be used about the same 
time. The laws of the English Church forbade 
the marriage of the clergy from about the yeai 
700, but these laws were not vigorously enforced 
till a considerable time afterward. Though the 
growth of error was slow, it was constant ; and 
although the creeds of the earliest ages were 
still retained as the basis of the faith, yet for 

some time before the Eeformation the doctiines 
5 



66 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

of the English Church did not differ in any 
respect from those of the Church of Eome. 

The morals of the clergy and of the people 
seem to have been very bad in many cases. 
The higher clergy were often engaged in poli- 
tics or spent their time in pleasure ; the lower 
clergy were often very ignorant, and the friars 
were noted as much for wickedness as for their 
pretended sanctity. 

It should be remembered^ however, in 
estimating the character of the clergy in 
those days, that the worst men are sure to 
be the most notorious, and therefore it is 
most likely there were ten good men in the 
ministry who passed quietly through the world, 
unnoticed and unrecorded, for every 07ie whose 
vices gave him a place in the records of history. 
There were many bad men in the ministry in 
those days, for their names and their evil deeds 
have come down to us ; but I cannot believe 
that all or even that the majority were bad 
men, any more than I can now believe that the 
majority of the ministry are bad men, though 
hearing almost daily of the evil and inconsistent 
lives of some of them. 

In the works of the poet Chaucerp who 



OF THE CHURCH. 67 

flourished nearly two hundred years before 
the Eeformation^ when corruption and error 
were at their height, there is one of the 
most beautiful descriptions of a good priest 
that is to be found in the English language ; 
it professes to be the portrait of a real 
personage, and if so, there must have been 
at least one fine specimen of the true minister 
of Christ in the English Church of that day.* 

* CHAUCER'S PRIEST. 

'' A good man there was of religion, 

He was a poor parson of a town, 

But rich he was of holy thought and work, 

He was a learned man, also a clerk, 

That Christ's go&pel truly would preach, 

His parishioners devoutly would he teach. 

Benign he was, and wondrous diligent, 

And in adversity full patient, 

And such a one he was proved oft sithes, 

Full loth were he to curse for his tithes, 

But rather would he give, out of doubt. 

Unto his poor parishioners all about, 

Both of his offering and his substance, 

He could in little have a suflSsance. 

Wide was his parish, and houses far asunder, 

But he ne'er left, neither for rain nor thimder, * 

In sickness, nor in mischief, for to visit 

The furthest in his parish, great or ^^.ght 

Upon his feet, and in his hand a staff. 

This noble example to his sheep he gave, 

That first he wrought, and afterward taught, 

Out of the gospel he the words caught. 

And this figure he added thereunto 

That if gold rust, what shall iron do'? 



68 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

In the next chapter it Avill be seen that there 
were many of similar character, who were 
earnestly strinng to bring about a reformation 
long before Luther and Calvin and Henry VIII. 
came out in open hostility to the Popes — 
indeed, long before they were born. 

The usurped authority, of the Eoman Bishops 

For if a priest be foul, on whom we trust, 
No wonder 'tis that a layman should rust. 
And shame it is, if a priest take keep. 
To see a foul shepherd and a clean sheep. 
Well ought a priest example for to give 
By his cleanness, how his sheep should live. 
He set not his benifice to hire, 
Nor left his sheep encumbered in the mire, 
And ran to London, to St. Paul's 
To seek himself a chantry for souls. 
Nor with a brotherhood to be withold, 
But dwelt at home and kept well his fold, 
^o that the wolf made them not miscarry, 
He was a shepherd and not a mercenary. 
And though he holy were and virtuous, 
He was not to sinful men despiteous. 
Nor of his speech dangerous nor dign, 
But in his teaching discreet and benign. 
To draw folk to heaven with fairness, 
By good example, this was his business. 
But if he knew any person obstinate, 
Whether he were of high or low estate, 
Him would he reprove sharply for the none©. 
A better priest, I trow, nowhere there is ; 
He waited after no pomp nor reverence, 
He made himself no spiced conscience. 
But Christ's lore, and his apostles twelve 
He taught, but first he followed it himself.' 



OF THE CHURCH. 69 

over the English Churchy was exercised for more 
than nine hundred years^ during all which time 
the doctrine and the practice of the Church 
continued to get worse and worse^ until the 
simplicity of the gospel was overshadowed by 
a mass of error and superstition. 

It will doubtless seem strange to many that 
we should wish to trace our descent through a 
Church so deeply contaminated with error as 
was the Church of England for so long a period : 
it is not pleasant to do so, and if there icere any 
purer line through which the blessings of the 
Christian covenant had been transmitted to us 
it would be very gratifying to seek out and 
develop its history. But the Church of Eng- 
land was as near to being pure as any, and, 
indeed, much purer than any Church in western 
Europe, during the period under consideration.^^ 

*The promise of Goc7 to Abraham, that in his seed all the 
nations of the earth should be blessed, did not fail because 
our Blessed Saviour came through the womb of Ruth the 
Moabitess, and of Bathsheba who was guilty of adultery^ 
because there was always enough of the pure stock of 
Abraham to keep the promise good. So the promise of 
Christ that the gates of hell shall never prevail against his 
Church, did not fail in the Church of England in consequence 
of her errors or corruptions, for, as has been shown, the 
true faith was always the foundation of her doctrines and 
there were always enough of true godly persons in the 
Church to keep its spiritual life from becoming extinct 



70 mSTQIUCAL SKETCHES 

And at tliis point comes a grave question which 
he who desires to know and follow the truth, 
must look squarely and fairly in the face. The 
question is this — '^ Did the Church of Christ 
die in those ages of decline and corruption ? " 
Did Christ withdraw his protecting hand from 
it^ and did the Holy Spirit take his departure 
from it^ leaving it the mere shell of a Church — 
a body without a soul ? 

Calvin and Luther^ and the reformers in 
France and Germany, took for granted that 
the Church was dead and they proceeded 
to form new churches on their own responsi- 
bility ; the English reformers did not consider 
their Church as dead, and they purged the 
old Church from its corruptions in preference 
to organizing a new one.'^ It concerns every 

* '^ The Reformation or Protestantism did not make a 
new faith or Church, but reduced things to their primitive 
purity : plucked not up the good seed, the Cathohc faith or 
true worship, but the after-sown tares of error, as image 
worship, purgatory, &c., which were ready to choke it. 
Did the reformation in Hezekiah's or Josiah's days set up 
a new Church or rehgion different in essence from the old 
one 1 Had it not been a ridiculous impertinency for one 
that knew Naaman before, while he stood by, to ask, where 
is Naaman 7 And being answered this is he, for the in- 
quirer to reply, "it cannot be, for JSTaaman was a leper — ■ 
this man is clean." Was not Naaman, formerly a leper, 
and now cleansed, the samo person % In like manner the 



OF THE CHURCH. 71 

lover of truth to settle for himself the ques- 
tion — which was right^ the German or the 
English reformers, and this leads him back 
to the question ^^ Was the English Church dead 
or living ? '' The facts of history give the 
answer. Was that Church abandoned by 
Christ and deserted by the Holy Spirit in which 
daily prayer was offered up in thousands of 
churches^ in which the word of God was 
accessible to all that were learned enough to 
read it, in which the Creed^ the Lord's Prayer ^ 
and the ten commandments must be taught by 
every minister ; was that Church dead which 
fed the poor and gave an asylum to the desti- 
tute, which could and did defend the weak and 
helpless against the rapine, lust and cruel 
tyranny of . feudal lords and their savage 
soldiery ; was it dead when every child was 
blessed with the water of baptism and every 
adult could partake of the life-giving food of 
the Holy Communion, when the peasant could 
kneel at the same altar with the king, and the 
censures of discipline fell as heavily on the 



true visible Christian Church cleansed and uncleansed, re- 
formed and unre formed is the same Chin'ch." — S. Gar- 
diner. — Oihson^s collection of h^acts* 



72 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

monarch as on the slave ? No ; it was not 
dead. The Church of England sinned ; but 
Christ was merciful and did not cast her off ; 
and. the holy lives of thousands in her fold 
proved that in the worst of times the Spirit 
still remained to keep alive the decaying fire 
of piety, and preserve her for better days and a 
more glorious destiny. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The morning star of the Reformation. — The Church ready 
and anxious for Reformation. — John Wickhffe, the first 
Reformer. — Wickliflfe's preparation for his work. — Con- 
troversy wich the mendicant friars. — Refusal to pay tribute 
to the Pope. — Summary of Wickhffe's doctrines. — State- 
ment of the doctrine of justification by faith. — Sound 
doctrine preached 500 years ago. — Wicklifie first brought 
to trial for heresy. — He denounces the friars on his sick 
bed. — His second trial. — His translation of the Bible. 
His third trial. — Is expelled from Oxford, but continues 
his labors. — His death. — Number and zeal of Wickliflfe's 
disciples. — The fires of martyrdom kindle the fire of 
reformation. 

In the last chapter we beheld the night of 
error and superstition gradually settling down 
on the Church of England, and yet saw that 
the fire of true piety here and there lit up the 
gloom ; that the true faith was preserved entire, 
though almost buried by the false doctrines 
that men had heaped upon it, and that the 
Word of God was preserved and studied by 
the Church, to whose keeping it had been 
entrusted. 

In this chapter it will be our pleasanter 

labor to watch how this seed of truth, so 

long buried, began to devclope its hidden 

(73) 



74 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

life ; to see how it ivoiild grow in spite of 
the obstacles that opposed it^ and to trace 
how it did continue to grow until it brought 
forth a noble and abundant harvest. 

The Keformation in the Church of England 
began about two hundred years before the 
actual renunciation of the Papal jurisdiction. 
Unhke the Keformation in France, Switzerland 
and Germany, it was a very slow and gradual 
movement. God, in his good providence, raised 
up a succession of wise and faithful men who 
saw and felt the errors, corruptions and 
oppressions under which the Church was labor- 
ing, and who were bold enough to declaim 
against those errors ; the political power and 
the privileges of the higher clergy called forth 
many of the most powerful of the nobility to 
take ground against the unlawful assumptions 
of the Pope ; and the scandalous lives of many 
of the clergy, together with the oppressive 
taxation, excited dissatisfaction and a desire for 
change, in the minds of a large portion of the 
lower and middle classes of the nation. 

All the elements for a great popular move- 
ment existed in England early in the four- 
teenth century, — first, a dissatisfied people^ 



OF THE CHURCH. 75 

conscious that there were great wrongs and 
abuses connected with the Church, but not 
able to detect precisely what and where they 
were, — second, a powerful body of nobility, 
irritated by the claims of the higher clergy 
to superiority over them, and envious of 
the wealth which enabled those clergy to 
maintain their rank and surpass the nobles 
in luxurious display, — and third, a few pious 
and daring men, who were learned enough 
to have found out what was the disease that 
was eating out the vitals of the Church — who 
were anxious enough for the welfare of the 
Church to wish to reform and not to destroy it, 
and therefore were earnest in pointing out the 
disease in order to effect its cure, and who were 
so filled with holy zeal for the truth and with 
anxiety to save souls from eternal death, that 
they rose boldly above all fear of the conse- 
quences, and counted not even their lives dear 
to them, in view of the blessed results, to them- 
selves and the people, of proclaiming boldly the 
Gospel of Christ in its integrity and purity. 
God raised up the preachers and qualified them 
for their work : they went forth in His strength 
and proclaimed His truth ; the people heard 



76 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

them gladly^ and the Holy Spirit gave to 
their words vitality and power, in thousands 
of pious souls ; the nobles defended the 
preachers, partly from political motives and 
partly from a desire to have the Church 
reformed ; and thus quietly but swiftly the 
errors of the Church were pointed out, the 
simple doctrines of the gospel were everywhere 
made known, and the Papal dominion in Eng- 
land, so far as it rested on the support of the 
popular voice, was effectually broken. 

A brief account of some of the early Ee 
formers will best show how these results were 
accomplished.''*' 

Foremost among them all — earliest in the 
field and most distinguished for piety, learning 
and noble daring — was John Wickliffe, justly 
styled the '^ Morning Star of the Keformation/' 
He was born about the year 1324, in a village 
called Wickliffe, in Yorkshire, where his ances- 
tors had resided from the time .of the Norman 
conquest. The family was respectable, and 
possessed considerable property, but did not 

*Tbis accoiint of Wickliffe is abridged from '"the Writ- 
ings of Wickliffe/' published by the London Religious 
Tract Society, London, 18GL 



OF THE CHURCH. 77 

follow his views nor give him any assistance 
in his labors. Being expected to enter the 
Church as a minister^ he was^ at the proper 
age, placed at Queen's College, Oxford, 
whence he soon removed to Merton College, 
which was then the most distinguished of all 
the schools of the University. He became not 
only skilled in controversial divinity as taught 
by the Schoolmen, which was the most fashion- 
able species of learning in those times, but 
also well versed in the Scriptures, which 
was then a rare accomplishment, and his 
writings show that though he had learned 
much from the study of the Fathers, yet it was 
mainly from the Bible that he formed his 
religious principles and drew his most effective 
arg-uments. His perusal of the Scriptures and 
the Fathers rendered him dissatisfied with the 
scholastic divinity of that age, while the 
knowledge of canon and civil law which he was 
obliged to obtain before he could be ordained, 
qualified him to detect the causes of the evils 
that afflicted the Church. He was also well 
acquainted with the laws and political rights 
of his own country. The four great Fathers 
of the Western Church, Jerome, Ambrose, 



78 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

Augustine and Gregory are continually quoted 
by him, so as to show his intimate acquaint- 
ance with their writings. Wickliffe's ability 
as a scholar was acknowledged even by his 
bitterest opponents. 

His mind must have received deep and very 
serious impressions from an awful visitation of 
Providence which occurred in the middle of 
the fourteenth century. Europe was shaken 
by a succession of earthquakes ; and, shortly 
after, it was ravaged by a 'pestilence^ the effects 
of which were more rapid and extensive than 
at this day we can readily conceive. More 
than one-third of the people of England and 
of other countries in Europe, were swept away 
by it. (See Keightley's Hist, of Eng., chap. 
VII., and other authors.) That Wickliffe was 
deeply impressed by this event, appears by his 
frequent references to it while trying to awaken 
a careless and profane generation. And under 
a strong presentiment that the end of the world 
was approaching, he wrote his first publication, 
called ^^ The last Age of the Church,'' in which 
he describes the corruptions then pervad- 
ing the whole Church and State, as the main 
cause of that chastisement which Europe had 



OF THE CHURCH. 79 

SO lately felt. Such impressions as these evi- 
dently tended much to strengthen and pre- 
pare Wickliffe for the difficulties he was soon 
to encounter. 

Thus we find him^ in his thirty-second year^ 
respected for his attainments in learning, 
deeply impressed with the importance of divine 
truth, awakened to a sense of the divine judg- 
ments, enabled already to break through the 
bands of superstition, and in possession of a 
clear knowledge of Christ and of a living faith 
in Him as a Saviour. God had selected an able 
champion and furnished him well for his task ; 
and the conflict with error was close at hand. 

The first circumstance which summoned 
Wickhffe to this confiict was a controversy with 
the mendicant friars. Some of them had set- 
tled at Oxford before the time of Wickliffe, 
where they attracted much notice by their 
professed freedom from the avarice so common 
among the other monks, and by their activity 
as preachers. They introduced many of the 
opinions afterwards adopted by the reformers, 
saying much in opposition to the authority of 
the Pope and in support of the authority of 
the Bible. But they were very loose in their 



80 IIIISTORICAL SKETCHES 

morals, they persecuted those who really 
labored to spread the knowledge of the truth, 
and their influence generally was unfavorable 
to the advancement of pure religion. 

Against these friars Wickliffe wrote tracts, 
entitled, ^^ Against able Beggary/' "Of the 
property of Christ,'' and "Of idleness in Beg- 
gary ; " and he went beyond the case of the 
friars to consider more fully all the vices of the 
priesthood. The University of Oxford sustained 
him in this controversy, for he was chosen ward- 
en of Baliol College in the year 1361. In the 
same year his college presented him to the living 
of Fillingham in Lincolnshire, and in 1365 he 
was appointed warden of Canterbury Hall, by 
Simon de Islip, the founder of the Hall, who 
was then Archbishop of Canterbury. 

Another circumstance now occurred which 
helped to bring Wickliffe into notice This 
was the decision of the English Parliament to 
resist the claim of Pope Urban V., who 
attempted the revival of an annual payment 
of a thousand marks,'*" as a tribute or feudal 
acknowledgment that the Kingdoms of Eng- 
land and Ireland were held at the pleasure 

* Equal to $3200. 



OF THE CHURCH. 81 

Of the Popes ; which claim was founded on the 
surrender of the crown by the pusillanimous 
King John, A. D. 1214. The tribute had not 
been paid for thirty-three years ; Pope Urban V. 
demanded that the arrears should be settled, 
and the tribute regularly paid thenceforward, 
but King Edward III. and the parliament 
unanimously resolved not to pay either tribute 
or arrears. It will be seen that this was a 
question of great importance at that time, for 
at this period the Pope's authority over all 
persons, civil as well as ecclesiastical, was al- 
most universally acknowledged in all western 
Europe, and this refusal to pay tribute to him 
was an open declaration, by the people and 
King of England, that they would not submit 
to his authority in temporal matters. 

Wickliffe was personally called upon to 
defend the position taken by the King and 
parliament, and he wrote a tract discussing 
the question, in which occurs this passage — 
" Christ is the Supreme Lord, while the Pope 
is a man liable to mortal sin, and who, while in 
mortal sin, according to divines, is unfitted for 
dominion." The scandalous lives of the Popes 
at that time made this argument one of great 

6 



82 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

force and of cutting effect. Wickliffe con- 
cludes with this prediction^ which was not long 
in being fulfilled^ ^^ If I mistake not, the day- 
will come in which all such exactions shall 
cease, before the Pope will prove such a ccndi- 
tion to be reasonable and honest/' 

Wickliffe was kept in a very conspicuous 
position, from this time forward, by the favor 
and friendship shown to him by John of Gaunt, 
duke of Lancaster, who was not only powerful 
as being the son of King Edward III., but as 
a man of ability and having great influence in 
affairs of state. - In 1373 Wickliffe was ad- 
mitted to the degree of Doctor in Divinity, and 
as this rank was rarely conferred in those days, 
it carried with it a considerable degree of 
influence which must have helped very much 
to diffuse his doctrines throughout the king- 
dom. His writings at this time were mostly 
lectures on theology, delivered as a Professor 
of Divinity at Oxford, and the following is a 
short summary of his opinions, taken from 
them : — 

DOCTRINES TAUGHT BY WICKLIFFE. 

He considered the Holy Scriptures as a 
divine revelation, containing a sufficient and 
pertect rule of faith and practice. 



OF THE CHURCH. 83 

The Pope's authority in temporal matters 
he wholly denied^ granted to him authority in 
other respects only so far as Scripture allowed, 
and maintained that he might err in doctriTie 
as well as in life. 

The Church of Borne he considered not to 
be superior in authority to the Church of 
England or to any other Church. He did not 
allow that the Fope was head of the Church ; 
and condemned the extravagant authority 
assumed by the Bishops and the higher clergy, 
and all attempts of any of the clergy to lord 
it over God's heritage instead of being exam- 
ples to the flock. 

He held the seven Sacraments as taught by 
the Church at that time, but only lavs stress 
upon tivOj that is, Baptism and the Lord's 
Supper. The doctrine of Transubstantiatian 
he wholly rejected. The doctrine of Purgatory 
he believed, but did not believe that the souls 
there could be benefitted by the prayers of men 
or the intercession of saints. His views on 
purgatory were considerably modified toward 
the close of his life. He allowed the memory 
of the Saints to be honored, but only that men 
might be excited to follow their example. 



84 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

He did not admit that it was proper to worship 
or pray to them, but held that Jesus Christ 
was the only Mediator. Pilgrimages he wholly 
disapproved of, and the worship of images he 
frequently condemns. The granting of par- 
dons and indulgences by the Pope he censured 
in the strongest terms ; he held that forgive- 
ness of sins could be obtained from God alone. 
He condemned the celibacy of the clergy^ im- 
posed at that time by Papal authority. 

And in regard to the great question of the 
Keformation, whether we are justified by the 
merits of Christy or by the merit of our own 
good works, his teaching was plain and positive 
in favor of Christ, as the following quotation 
will show : Wicldiffe says, *^ Heal us, Lord, 
for nought ; that is, no merit of ours ; but for 
thy mercy. Lord, not to our merits, but to thy 
mercy give thy joy. Give us grace to know 
that all thy gifts are of thy goodness. Our 
flesh, though it seem holy, yet it is not holy. 
We are all originally sinners, as Adam, and in 
Adam ; his leprosy cleaveth faster to us than 
Naaman's did to Gehazi. For, according to his 
teaching, we are all sinners, not only from our 
birthj but before, so that we cannot so much as 



OF THE CHURCH. 85 

tJiinh a good thought unless Jesus the Angel 
of great counsel send it, nor ^perform a good 
work unless it be properly his good work. His 
mercy comes before us that we receive grace, 
and followeth us helping us and keeping us in 
grace. So then it is not good for us to trust 
in our merits^ in our virtues^ in our righteous- 
ness, but to conclude this point, good it is only 
to trust in God.'' 

Eemember that these words were written by 
a Presbyter of the Church of England, by a 
Doctor of Divinity and Professor of Divinity 
in the University of Oxford, by one of the 
chaplains of the king, by the intimate friend 
of the king's son, the Duke of Lancaster ; 
remember that they were written Jive hundred 
years ago, and that very few Doctors of Divin- 
ity at the present day can state the doctrine 
of Justification by Faith more clearly than it 
is here stated ; and you will perceive that in 
the worst day that ever came on the Church 
of England, her light was very far from being 
put out, and you will also readily imagine what 
success a man of such abilities, such learning, 
euch piety, and such a conspicuous i)osiiion 
must have met with in reviving among the 



86 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

great body of the laity the practical knowledge 
of true religion. 

In the year 1374^ another difference arose 
between the English nation and the Pope. 
Seven English Bishops had died during the 
pestilence, and the Pope had filled all theii 
places with foreigner Sj to the great discontent 
of the nation. An embassy was sent to 
remonstrate with the Pope, but after nearly 
two years of evasions and delay, they returned 
with very little accomplished. Wickliffe 
was one of the ambassadors, and what he 
saw while thus engaged, convinced him more 
than ever of the corruptions of the Papacy, 
and of the necessity for a thorough reforma- 
tion. In 1376 Parliament was aroused to con- 
sider the intolerable exactions of the Popes ; a 
remonstrance of that body states that the 
taxes paid to the Pope yearly out of England 
were five times the amount paid to the King, 
also that the richest prince in Europe had not 
the fourth part of the income that the Pope 
received from England alone, and the same doc- 
ument declared, in quaint but forcible phrase, 
^^ that Grod had committed his sheep to the Pope 
to he pastured, and not to be shorn or shavenJ* 



OF THE CHURCH. 87 

WicWifFe's boldness in spreading his opinions 
and in exposing abuses, at last roused the 
Bishops and the clergy who were of the Pope's 
party to make a determined eflfort to silence 
luTQ; and in February, 1377, he was cited to 
appear before the Bishop of London to answer 
certain charges brought against him for holding 
and publishing erroneous and heretical doc- 
trines. On the day appointed he made his 
appearance, but attended by his friend the 
Duke of Lancaster, and lord Henry Percy, lord 
marshal of England. The presence of these 
powerful nobles deterred the Bishop from doing 
any thing more than venting his spite at them 
for their interference, and the assembly breaking 
up in disorder, the proceedings against Wick- 
liffe were dropped. 

In June, 1377, the Pope sent orders to the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Lon- 
don, and the University of Oxford, requiring 
them to seize and imprison Wickliffe, to take 
his confession, ascertain distinctly what w^ere 
his doctrines, and hold him .in custody till 
further instructions were sent. The University 
would not suffer hind to be imprisoned, but he 



88 HISTOBICAL SKETCHES 

was again cited to appear for trial in the early 
part of the year 1378. 

At this time the Duke of Lancaster had lost 
his political influence^ to a great extent^ and 
was unable to give Wickliffe assistance ; but 
the powerful impression that his teaching had 
produced on the people was now apparent. 
Considerable crowds surrounded the place of 
trial^ many forced an entrance and openly de- 
clared their attachment to the reformer ; and 
Sir Lewis Clifford^ in the name of the Queen 
Mother^ forbade the Bishops from pronouncing 
any definite sentence. Amid these labors and 
persecutions Wickliffe was taken sick and was 
expected to die ; the mendicant friars whom he 
had so often assailed^ concluded that this would 
be a good time to induce him to retract what he 
had said about them, and a delegation of them 
visited him in his sick room, accompanied by 
the civil authorities of the city as witnesses of 
his recantation. Wickliffe heard their requests 
and their reasons for recantation, in silence and 
unmoved ; when they had finished, he made 
signs to his attendants to raise him in his bed, 
and, summoning all his remaining strength, he 
loudly exclaimed, ^^I shall not die, but live, 



OF THE CHURCH. 89 

and shall again declare the evil deeds of the 
friars/' 

He did live^ and not only declared the evil 
deeds of the friars, but, five years later, in 
1383, he finished the greatest work of his life, 

THE TRANSLATION OF THE SCRIPTURES INTO 

THE English language. Copies of Wick- 
liflFe's Bible were rapidly multiplied, and for the 
fijst time since the Papal dominion began in 
England, the word of God was placed in the 
hands of the people in their own language. 
The hostility excited against him among the 
Papal party, in consequence of this translation, 
was exceedingly bitter. One of his enemies 
(Knighton) thus complains of him — " Christ 
delivered his Gospel to the clergy and doctors 
of the Church that they might administer to 
the laity and to weaker persons according to 
the state of the times and the wants of man. 
But this master John Wickliffe translated it 
out of Latin into English, and thus laid it 
more open to the laity and to women who can 
read than it formerly had been to the most 
learned of the clergy. The jewel of the Church 
is turned into the sport of the people, and what 
was hitherto the principal gift of the clergy 



90 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

and divines, is made forever common to the 
laity." 

Let it be forever remembered, that the first 
man who in modern times gave the Bible into 
the hands of all the people, was John Wicklifie, 
a Presbyter of the Church of England, and 
that this most effective of all reformations 
was successfully accompHshed one hundred and 
tMrty-four years before Zz^^Aer preached against 
indulgences, and one hundred and forty-eight 
years before Henry VIII, directed the Bishops 
to prepare a new translation of the Scriptures. 

In 1382, Courtney, Bishop of London, who 
was the leader of the Papal party, having pro- 
cured authority from the king, in defiance of 
the will of Parliament and contrary to law, set 
himself to the work of persecuting Wickliflfe 
and his followers. Wickliflfe was again sum- 
moned to trial, and this trial proved that he 
was not a mere political reformer, but an ear- 
nest and true Christian and a faithful ambassa- 
dor for Christ. His former friend and patron, 
the Duke of Lancaster, who wished to regain 
the good will of Courtney, advised him to 
submit to the Bishop's requirements in matters 
of doctrine, and even at Oxford, where he had 



OF THE CHUKCH. 91 

been so honored^ no one was found bold enough 
to take his part. The question on which he 
was tried was the doctrine of Transubstantia- 
tion, one of such an abstract nature that he 
might easily have framed his answers so as to 
have satisfied his judges and avoided their 
censure ; but he was too honest and fearless to 
do this. He boldly declared his former opinions 
and maintained them with great learning and 
skill. The assembly condemned his doctrine 
as heretical^ and being at that time afraid 
to proceed further, they procured a mandate 
from the king ordering the expulsion of Wick- 
liffe and his followers from the University 
within seven days. 

Though Wickliffe was thus expelled from 
Oxford; neither his tongue nor pen was bound, 
but he continued to preach at Lutterworth, of 
which parish he was rector, and his tmcts and 
sermons, composed at this period, were copied 
and circulated very extensively. The danger 
which he incurred by this course, was greater 
than any to which he had previously been 
exposed, but he pursued his course with 
unwavering courage, having fully made up his 
mind to suffer martyrdom, if it should be 



92 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

necessary^ rather than deny or keep back the 
truth. The stroke which he expected; did 
not, however, fall upon him ; the distracted 
political state of the country absorbed the 
entire attention of the leaders, and Wickliffe 
was left to pass his few remaining days undis- 
turbed. He died on the last day of the year 
1384, from a stroke of paralysis. 

At the time of Wickliflfe's death, his disci- 
ples were very numerous. Knighton, his 
enemy and contemporary, says, ^^ The number 
of those who believed in Wickliffe's doctrine, 
very much increased and was multiplied, like 
suckers growing from the root of a tree. They 
everywhere filled the kingdom ; so that a man 
could scarcely meet two people on the road, 
but one of them was a disciple of Wickliffe. 
They so prevailed by their laborious urging of 
their doctrines, that they gained over half the 
people, or a still greater proportion, to their 
sect.'' This testimony is very va,luable, as 
being the unwilling evidence of an enemy to 
the great success of the labors of Wickliffe and 
those who sympathized with him. 

With half the people on the side of reforma- 
tion, with the errors and corruptions of the 



OF THE CHURCH. 93 

Church so clearly exposed as they had been for 
upwards of thirty years of Wickliffe's preach- 
ing, with the Holy Scriptures translated into 
their own tongue^ and in circulation through 
all the land^ and^ most of all^ with a large 
number of truly pious and well-instructed 
Christians^ whose hearts the Holy Spirit had 
touched through these influences^ w^ho were 
bold to maintain and zealous to propagate 
their faith^ the Reformation in England may 
be considered as having fully begun^ and begun 
in so mse a manner, and upon such correct 
principles that it was not within the power of 
man to stop it. 

After Wickliffe's death, persecutions were 
commenced, and were continued at intervals 
until the general Eeformation in the time of 
Edward VI. ; but they only proved the truth 
of the proverb that the blood of the martyrs 
is the seed of the Church. Many, distinguished 
for rank and learning, were persecuted, among 
whom were Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, 
and Eeynald Pecock, Bishop of Chichester. 
Lord Cobham was put to death, and Pecock 
was expelled from the House of Lords and 
deprived of his bisho])ric. A very considerable 



94 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

number of people of less note, were put to 
death, and a great multitude were subjected 
to imprisonment, torture, or punishment of 
some sort, for teaching the truth, or for own- 
ing some of the writings of Wickliflfe. 

Yet the efforts of the Papal party were all 
in vain ; they prevented the open circulation 
of Wickliffe's Bible, but it was secretly kept 
and secretly studied, and orally taught ; they 
covered up the fire, but it was pot put out ; 
the time had come, in God's good providence, 
for the Church to be purified, and these fires, 
kindled in Wickliffe's time, were only waiting 
for the right man to uncover them, when they 
would burst out in a universal blaze through- 
out the land, and consume the last trace of 
Papal dominion and Antichristian corruption. 



OHAPTEE V. 



The Church of England during the reign of Henry VIII. — 
Reformation desired. — Obstacles in the way of obtaining 
it. — God provides a leader for the reforming party. — 
Causes that led Henry VIII. to quarrel with the Pope. — 
Henry's efforts to keep on friendly terms. — His failure, 
and open rupture. Henry is forced to aid in reformation 
against his will. — Important improvements allowed by 
the king. — The wrath of man overruled to promote the 
glory of God. 

The Scriptures everywhere teach us that 
Grod overrules all events to accomplish His 
designs, that He makes the wrath of man 
praise Him, and often causes the evil deeds of 
evil men to work out for others the most 
beneficial results. A clear and forcible illustra- 
tion of this truth will be found in the history of 
the English Church during the reign of Henry 
VIII. 

We have now reached that period in the his- 
tory of the Church when the desire for a 
reformation began to show itself in open and 
powerful action, and when, by the good provi- 
dence of God, the passions of a headstrong 

and licentious monarch were made to bring 

(95) 



96 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

aT)Out a considerable reformation in the Church, 
and a complete deliverance from bondage to 
the Bishop of Rome. 

When Henry ascended the throne of Eng- 
land, there was no more zealous advocate of all 
the doctrines and practices of the Church of 
Eome than he. When Luther, in 1517, came 
out and boldly exposed the errors and cormp- 
tions of the Church, Henry wrote a treatise 
against the doctrines of Luther, with which 
the Pope was so much pleased that he gave to 
him the title of "Defender of the Faith,'' 
which title the sovereigns of England still 
retain. Henry never was a friend to Luther, 
nor to the doctrines which Luther taught ; and 
yet he contributed more to the spread of 
those opinions in England than any other man. 
Let us examine and see how so strange a result 
was brought about. 

When Henry VIII. came to the throne, 
there were very many persons in England who 
might properly be called Beformers^ though 
there was no great champion ready to give utter- 
ance to their wishes, or definite direction to 
their plans, as Wickliffe had done previously, and 
as Luther did afterwards in Germany. The 



OF TjHE CHURCH. 97 

teachings and writings of Wickliffe had awak- 
ened the minds of large numbers of the English 
people^ and this awakening had continued to 
the time of Henry VIII. The Bible, which 
Wickliffe had translated into English, had 
been in the hands of the people for about one 
hundred and fifty years, and it is a fair infer- 
ence to suppose that many persons must have 
been convinced that it gave no countenance to 
the errors and evil practices of the Church. 
There was undoubtedly a large minority ^ if not 
a majority of the English nation, who wished 
for a reformation of some sort. But they had 
no leader ; there was no one who dared to take 
his life in his hand, and openly attack the 
errors and abuses which so many saw and 
deplored. 

Besides, the obstacles in the way of a 
reformation seemed almost insurmountable. 
In the first place, there was the power of the 
Pope, which was then a terror to kings, much 
more to private persons ; there was then the 
power of the king, who was at first a most 
zealous defender of things as they were ; there 
was the influence and authority of the Bishops, 

who were bound by law to punish all who 

7 



98 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

differed from the doctrines of the Church ; and 
there was the great wealth of the monasteries, 
which were all most devoted in their adherence 
to the Pope ; — all these and many other influ- 
ences stood directly opposed to whosoever 
should proclaim himself an opponent of the 
doctrines, or a reformer of the abuses, held and 
practised in the Church. It is, therefore, no 
wonder that no great champion of Reform was 
found, for such an one could not have kept his" 
head upon his shoulders for six months. It is 
no wonder that good men kept their thoughts 
to themselves, or only spoke and acted on a 
small scale. But still the fire was burning, 
though secretly ; it was spreading unperceived 
through all the land, and was ready to burst 
out everywhere into an open flame, so soon as 
a favorable opening should be afforded. 

The Lord, who had, by the agencies that 
have been before spoken of^ prepared the hearts 
of many of his people for a reformation, now 
raised up a leader in the person of Henry VIII. 
A man who was cruel, tyrannical and licen- 
tious, and who was, moreover, a violent 
opponent of Luther and of the reformation 
which he was accomplishing, became the chief 



OF THE CHURCH. 99 

instrument in bringing about a reformation in 
the Church of England. And it is worthy of 
notice, also, that, humanly speaking, the king 
was the only person who could have been the 
leader of this movement without ha\dng it 
result in terrible persecution, bloodshed, and 
probably ci\il war. 

The necessities of the case required dL politi- 
cal head to what was, in effect, a religious 
movement ; for the power of the Pope, being 
political as well as religious, could not be suc- 
cessfully resisted except by employing political 
power to keep down persecution, as well as 
religious argument to overthrow error. Thus 
was the good providence of God most clearly 
shown in the selection of a leader for the 
reformation of the English Church — a leader, 
the raO'St unlikely of all others to favor a 
reformation, and yet the only man who could 
peaceably bring it about. 

The circumstances which led King Henry 
VIII. to renounce the authority of the Pope 
over himself and the English Church, are so 
familiar to all readers of English history, that 
they wiU be here narrated in the briefest 
manner. 



100 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

Henry had married the widow of his elder 
brother^ having obtained permission from the 
Pope to do so ; but his children all dying 
except one^ he began to doubt the lawfulness 
of the marriage^ and applied to the Pope to 
grant him a divorce. About this time^ he had 
set his aflfections very strongly upon Anne 
Boleyn^ one of the queen's maids of honor^ 
w^hom he desired to make his wife ; and his 
passion for this lady, together with his scruples 
in regard to the legality of his marriage, ren- 
dered him exceedingly anxious to obtain a 
divorce. But the Pope hesitated about grant- 
ing it, as he would thereby have greatly 
offended the powerful emperor of Germany, 
Charles V., who was a near relative of the 
English queen. Being unwilling either to 
grant the divorce, through fear of displeasing 
the emperor of Germany, or to refuse it, and 
thus offend the king of England, the Pope 
adopted a middle course, and used all possible 
methods to delo.y the decision, until the 
patience of Henry was exhausted and he deter- 
mined to take the matter into his own hands. 
In accordance with a suggestion of Oranmer, 
afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, the king 



OF THE CHURCH. 101 

requested the opinion of the Universities^ and 
the most learned men of France and England, 
as to whether his first marriage was lawful^ and 
they all returned the same answer, that the 
marriage with a brother's wddow was contrary 
to the law of God, and therefore null and 
void from the beginning. 

After this decision, which accorded so well 
with the king's wishes, he married Anne 
Boleyn, but still wished to remain on friendly 
terms with the Pope, and to obtain his consent 
to his second marriage. 

To preserve these friendly relations, the king 
sent messengers to Kome to justify his conduct 
to the Pope ; but the messengers being acci- 
dentally delayed on their journey, and the 
agents of the emperor of Germany being 
urgent with the Pope to give his decision, he 
decided against granting the divorce. The 
English and French ambassadors at Kome 
requested the Pope to delay his decision for a 
short time, and suggested that the expected 
messengers might have been accidentally hin- 
dered on their journey ; but the Pope, who had 
been exceedingly slow and cautious for the 
whole four years in which the question had 



102 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

been before him for decision, suddenly became 
so rash and impatient that he would not wait 
a few days for a messenger, and pronounced 
sentence against the king, just as the messenger 
entered the city bringing overtures of peace and 
reconciliation. 

When Henry found that his sincere wish to 
preserve peace with the Pope had been treated 
so contemptuously, he resolved to carry into 
full effect the bill which had already been 
passed in Parliament, abiogating the suprema- 
cy of the Pope in England, and requiring all 
the clergy and civil officers to take an oath 
renouncing the authority of the Pope, and ac- 
knowledging that of the king.'^ This oath was 
readily taken by a large majority of those 

* Henry propounded to the Bishops and clergy in the 
provincial synods of England, to the celebrated Universities, 
and to the great monasteries of the kingdom, the following 
question, viz: "Whether the Bishop of Rome hath any 
greater jurisdiction conferred on him, in Holy Scripture, in 
this realm of England than any other foreign Bishop '? " 
The answer was — '' The Bishop of Rome hath not any 
greater jurisdiction conferred on him, in Holy Scripture, in 
this realm of England than any other foreign Bishop." In 
this answer all the Bishops of England united, with the 
exception of Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. The unanimity 
with which all the synods, Bishops, Universities, and mon- 
asteries denied the Pope's jurisdiction, shows how thorough- 
ly the way was prepared for reformation before Henry 
Yin* took any steps towards it. 



OF THE CHURCH. 103 

who were required to take it^ and^ from that 
time, all connexion between the Church of 
England and the Pope of Kome was completely 
dissolved, except for a few years during the 
reign of Mary. 

But the Church was not yet reformed-— 
very far from it. Only one step had been ta- 
ken in that direction, though the consequences 
of that step were tremendous, and its ultimate 
benefits incalculable. The power of the Pope 
as the earthly head of the Church had been 
denied, and his authority had been trampled 
under foot. This was taking out the keystone 
from the arch which ignorance and supersti- 
tion had been constructing for ages, and when 
the keystone was gone, the whole structure 
was obliged to fall, and very soon did fall, 
never to be rebuilt. The Pope's spiritual 
power reverted to the Bishops, to whom of 
right it belonged, and his political power rever- 
ted to the King. It was stated that Henry 
did not wish, nor intend to become a reform- 
er of the Church ; yet having made a begin- 
ning, by renouncing the authority of the Pope, 
he was compelled by circumstances to go still 
farther. His second wife, Anne Boleyn, was 



104 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

a friend of reformation^ and a friend also to 
Thomas Cranmer^ Archbishop of Canterbury, 
who was the true religious leader of the reform- 
ation in the English Church. Henry lo vedC ran - 
mer, relied on him^ trusted him^ and to Cranmer 
alone the capricious monarch remained true 
and faithful all his life. Through Cranmer's 
influence examinations were had into the lives 
of the clergy, and many scandalous abuses 
were thereby removed. The Bible was put 
into more general circulation than ever it had 
been before, the clergy were required to be 
better instructed themselves and to attend 
more closely to the instruction of their people, 
and homilies or sermons were printed, which 
the clergy were required to read to their con- 
gregations. 

The monasteries and religious houses for 
monks and nuns were all broken up ; which, 
though it was a step taken by the king for the 
sake of seizing upon the wealth which these 
houses possessed, was yet a most important 
step towards reform, since the morals of many 
of these communities were very corrupt, since 
they were the strongholds of the Pope's power, 
and because the influence which they exerted 



OF THE CHURCH. 105 

over the lower classes of the people was very 
powerful and very injurious. 

The belief in Purgatory ^ which was then, 
and now is, the most powerful engine for pro- 
moting superstition and upholding the power 
o£ the Popes, was preached against and ridi- 
culed and finally rejected from the doctrines of 
the English Church. 

The laws authorizing persecution were made 
much milder, though they were still put in force 
to some extent and many persons suffered for 
their opinions, during Henry's reign. 

Though most of the Church service was still 
in Latin, yet the Litany, in very nearly the 
same form in which it is now used, was printed 
in the English language and made part of the 
regular service in all Churches. And in addi- 
tion to the publication and distribution of the 
Bible, which was declared to be the rule of faith 
and which the people were exhorted to study, 
it was ordered that in every parish the children 
should be taught the Creed, the Lord's Prayer 
and the Ten Commandments, and should be 
instructed by the clergy in their meaning. 

Still, much remained to be done before the 
Church could bo considered thoroughly reform- 



106 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

ed in doctrine and in practice. Transubstan- 
tiation was still a doctrine of the Church, 
the clergy were not allowed to marry, the cup 
was denied to the laity in the communion, 
private masses were still in use, the Latin lan- 
guage was still used in a part of the service, 
confession to the priests was still customary, 
and persecution was authorized by law ; and yet, 
in reviewing the history of the English Church 
during the reign of Henry VIII., we cannot 
help being surprised, that so much should have 
been accomplished, towards establishing pure 
religion, by so corrupt a leader ; and especially 
may we be astonished when we reflect that it 
was his headstrong temper, his licentious pas- 
sions, and his rapacious thirst for money which 
led him to do those things that afterwards 
proved most beneficial to the Church. 

Who can fail to see in all these things a most 
striking confirmation of the declaration, "The 
wrath of man shall praise thee ; the remainder 
of wrath shalt thou restrain.'' "Who can 
observe all this and not acknowledge that 
human plans and human policy are very short- 
sighted, and, if Tie rejoice in the reformation 
which was brought about by such means, can 



OF THE CHURCH. 107 

fail to thank that Almighty Power which 
setteth at naught the wisdom and prudence of 
man, and governeth the world after the counsel 
of his own will, making " all things work 
together for good to them that love him." 



CHAPTER VI, 



The Reformation completed by Edward VI. and Archbishop 

Cranmer. — Thoroughness of Craiimer's reforms. — Ex- 
tent of the reforms, and mode of accomplishing them. — 
Removal of images from the Churches. — Cranmer's 
moderation in reforming the Prayer Book. — Alterations 
which were made in the Prayer Book. — Instructions to 
the clergy. — Favor shown to foreign reformers. — Pro- 
position for a general confederation of all Protestant 
Churches. — Cranmer's plan the only feasible one ever 
proposed. — Cranmer did not found a new Church. 

Edward VI. ^ the son and successor of Henry 
VIII., was as unlike his father as light is 
unlike darkness. Although he was only ten 
years old when his reign commenced, and only 
sixteen when he died, yet all historians agree 
that he was possessed of remarkable powers of 
intellect, and of equally uncommon piety and 
devotion. He was a warm friend of reforma- 
tion, and the persons, appointed by the will of 
Henry VIII. to govern the kingdom until he 
came of age, were also in favor of it. 

Foremost among these was Archbishop 
Cranmer, who seems to have exercised exten- 
sive powers in religious matters, during this 

reigD, and who, it will be remembered, was the 
(108) 



OF THE CHURCH. 109 

favorite counsellor of Henry VIII., and the 
real leader-'' of all the reforms which were 
accomplished during his reign. The position 
of Cranmer, as Archbishop of Canterbury and 
the ecclesiastical head of the English Church, 
and also as one of the principal advisers of the 
young king, gave him power to carry out 
his plans for reform, without hindrance. 

The health of Edward was so delicate that 

* The results of the unnatural and unscriptural relation 
of the Church of England to the Bishop of Rome, are thus 
summed up by Bramhall, who has adduced a mass of facts 
to show that the imperious temper of Henry YIII. was not 
the real ground for renouncing the Papal supremacy in 
England. 

" First, — the most intolerable extortions of the Roman 
court, committed from age to age, without hope of remedy. 

"Secondly, — the most unjust usurpation of all rights, 
civil, ecclesiastical, sacred and profane, of all orders of 
men, Kings, Nobles, Bishops. <fec. 

"Thirdly, — the malignant influence and effects of this 
foreign jurisdiction, destructive of the right ends of eccle- 
siastical discipline, producing disunion in the realm, factions 
and animosities between the crown and the mitre, intestine 
discords between the king and his barons, bad intelligence 
with neighbor princes, and foreign wars. 

" Fourthly, — a list of other inconveniences, or rather 
mischiefs, that did flow from thence ; as, to be daily sub- 
ject to have new articles of faith obtruded upon them, to 
be exposed to manifest peril of idolatry, to forsake the 
communion of three parts of Christendom, to approve of 
the Pope's rebellion against general comicils, and to have 
their Bishops take an oath — contrary to their oath of alle- 
giance — to maintain the Pope in his rebellious usurpations." 



110 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

there was very little hope of his living to man- 
hood, and the views of the Princess Mary, who 
would be the successor upon Edward's death, 
were so strongly opposed to reformation, that 
Cranmer foresaw the time would be short in 
which he could accomplish his plans. He accord- 
ingly set himself to work with all diligence, 
and used all his authority to further the work 
of reform. 

The result proved that he was correct ; the 
king reigned but six years, yet in that time 
the outward reformation of the Church was so 
far advanced that its doctrines and worship, as 
they were established when Edward VI. died, 
did not differ materially from what they are 
now.* 

While Cranmer was engaged in making these 

* Since the reign of Edward VI. the Book of Common 
Prayer has undergone several authorized examinations, and 
some few changes of importance have been made. Such 
are the restoration of the form of words originally addressed 
to communicantSj uniting it with the words that had been 
substituted for it in the Second Liturgy ; the addition of 
certain prayers and thanksgivings, including the prayers for 
Parliament, and for all conditions of men, and the general 
thanksgiving. The former change was made in the 
reign of Elizabeth, the latter in that of Charles II. 

The two Books of Common Prayer set forth by authority 
of Parliament in the reign of Edward VI., preface, p. 33, 
and note to p. 38. 



OF THE CHURCH. Ill 

reformations in the doctrines and worship of 
the Church, there was a majority of the Bish- 
ops who were friendly to the reform measures, 
and large numbers of the clergy and people 
were of the same mind ; yet there was not 
that earnest wish for reformation, in the minds 
of the majority, which would have forced the 
work on to immediate completion, without the 
aid of those in authority, Cranmer went be- 
yond the demands of public opinion at that 
time, and very far beyond the point at which 
the majority of the nation were contented to 
stop, during the reign of Henry VIII. 

He reformed the doctrines and practices of 
the Church, just as far as he considered it ex- 
pedient and necessary that they should be 
reformed, and he did this without waiting for 
public opinion to demand further reforms, but 
rather in advance of public sentiment. 

Knowing that there were still many of the 
clergy who were violently opposed to his meas- 
ures, he used his temporal authority to prevent 
them from creating any division or disturbance 
in the Church, and therefore simply obtained 
a royal order that all his measures should be 
carried out by the inferior clergy, under the 



112 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

penalty of being deprived of their benefices, 
if they refused to comply. 

Very few refused^ and; although there must 
have been very many v^ho did not approve of 
his course^ and did not believe his doctrines, 
the whole church was outwardly reformed, by 
Cranmer's exertions, in the short space of six 
years. 

It was reformed in its doctrines, from the 
half popish creed of Henry VIII. to the thor- 
oughly protestant belief which it holds at the 
present day ; its worship was changed by 
translating aU its services into the English 
language, so that all the people might under- 
stand and join in it, and the additions, which 
corrupt superstition had engrafted upon the 
simple liturgies of the early ages, were unspar- 
ingly cut off by this thorough reformer. 

It will be interesting, as well as profitable, 
to set forth somewhat in detail the mode in 
which Cranmer accomplished his reforms ; for 
the better method, which he used in reform- 
ing, is one great reason why the English Church 
of the present day possesses so many valua- 
ble and beautiful relics of the primitive and 
Apostolic ages, which the churches founded 



OF THE CHURCH. 113 

by the continental reformers have entirely- 
lost. 

The first reform which Oranmer attempted, 
after the accession of Edward had given him 
almost unlimited authority, was the removal 
of images of the Virgin Mary and of the Saints 
from the churches. His course in this matter 
will serve as a good specimen of his general 
mode of procedure. Nearly every church in 
the land must have possessed images of the 
Saints, and some churches had very many of 
them. 

Doubtless these images were regarded with 
high favor, by nearly all the people, and were 
bound to them by many hallowed associations, 
so that they could have hardly endured that 
any indignity should be offered to them, until 
they were convinced of the evils that attended 
their use. 

Cranmer saw the evil of permitting images 
in churches, and determined to have them 
removed. If he had chosen, he might at once 
have ordered the removal of every image from 
every church, and thus have accomplished his 
purpose almost immediately ; but he saw that 

such a course would create alarm and excite 

8 



114 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

needless prejudice against the reform measures, 
in the minds of great numbers of the people. 
Yet^ it was well known^ through all the land, 
that there had been some abuses connected 
with the use of images ; that extravagant 
honors^ amounting to absolute idolatry, had 
been paid at certain shrines, that miracles 
were supposed to be wrought at others, and 
that such abuses had been the sources of great 
profits to those priests under whose charge 
these shrines were, and that the shrines them- 
selves had been the means of promoting 
superstition among the people. 

In order, therefore, to call the attention of 
the people to the evils of image worship, 
without exciting their passions, Cranmer issued 
injunctions to the clergy to take down all such 
images as had been abused by improper devo- 
tion, and to avoid all such customs as tended 
to promote superstition. The people were 
forbidden to interfere in the matter, and when 
over-zealous persons attempted to run before 
they were sent, they were severely reproved, 
and threatened with heavy penalties. In order 
to give men time to think upon the subject, a 
year was allowed to elapse, after the order to 



OF THE CHURCH. 115 

remove the particular images which had been 
abused by superstitious practices, before a 
second order was issued directing the removal 
of all images. 

The same course of moderation and caution 
was adopted in preparing the Book of Common 
Prayer. The service book, then in use, was all 
in Latin, except the Litany ; it was at once 
desired to have the whole service in English, 
yet, as there was some objection to this, it was 
not decided to make the change until a full 
discussion had been held on the question, by 
both parties. 

Not only was the service book in Latin, but 
it sanctioned many false doctrines and super- 
stitious practices, such as Transubstantiation, 
Prayers to the Saints, and various other errors ; 
yet there was in it so much that was venerable 
for its antiquity, deeply devotional in ex- 
pression, and unexceptionable in doctrine, that 
Cranmer was unwilling to lay it aside and 
make an entirely new Prayer Book. He 
therefore appointed a number of learned and 
pious men to examine the service carefully, and 
remove all things erroneous in doctrine or 
superstitious in practice ; while he retained 



116 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

every expression and every custom against 
which no valid objection could be raised. 

Very little of the Prayer Book was original 
with Cranmer^ and that is one reason why it 
was then accepted^ so readily, by the Church, 
and why it has continued to hold so high a 
place in the affections of the English people, 
to the present time. Cranmer did not shock 
the innocent prejudices of the nation by vio- 
lently tearing down everything which had been 
connected with corruption, superstition or false 
doctrine, but simply removed the erroneous 
parts of the Church's worship, and left what 
was good and true to stand as it -was. He 
rightly judged that customs which were right 
in themselves, and to which men had become 
attached by long habit, were better for them 
than usages entirely new ; and that prayers 
and hymns, which had been in use since the 
formation of the Church, were better adapted 
to devotional purposes, than such as he or his 
associates could compose, although Cranmer 
could \ command the services of very learned 
and pious men. The principal additions to 
the service, which were made by Cranmer's 
authority, are the Sentences, Exhortation, 



OF THE CHURCH. 117 

Confession and Absolution, at the beginning 
of the service, and the Ten Commandments 
in the Communion Office ; all the other 
changes, which he made, were merely the 
leaving out of what was false in doctrine or 
superstitious in practice. 

Cranmer also directed his attention to the 
moral improvement of the clergy, and issued 
several injunctions, the object of which was to 
make the clergy more attentive to the instruc- 
tion of their flocks. To this end he had the 
Catechism prepared, and directed that the 
children should be thoroughly instructed in it.'^* 

He ordered that Bishops, and such other 
clergy as were competent, should preach a 
certain number of sermons during the year, 
while he took away the license to preach from 
those who were too ignorant to discharge the 
duty properly. He also procured the passage 
of an act of Parliament allowing the clergy to 
marry, and another one abolishing the penal- 

*The catechism, here referred to, was set forth A. D. 
1548, translated from the Latin of Justus Jonas. In the 
last year of Edward VI., A. D. 1553, a catechism for schools 
was published. The author is not certainly known, but 
''Whosoever was the author," says Strype, "the Arch- 
bishop we may conclude to be the furtherer and recommender 
of it to the King." — Strype's Cranmer, Vol. IL, pp. 4, 8. 



118 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

ties which had previously been inflicted for 
heresy. 

The persecutions and other troubles, encoun- 
tered by the reformers in Germany, France 
and Italy, drove many of them to take refuge 
in England, where they were permitted to 
establish congregations and to use their own 
modes of worship. Several learned reformers 
from foreign countries were appointed to situa- 
tions as instructors in the Universities, and, 
by their counsel, materially assisted Cranmer 
in carrying out his plans for reform.'*^' 

His intercourse with these learned and pious 
foreigners doubtless suggested to Cranmer a 
most happy idea, which it seems a great pity 
he should not have been able to put into execu- 
tion. This idea was no less than a plan for a 
confederation of the organizations of the 
reformers in Germany, France and other coun- 
tries on the continent of Europe, with the 
Church of England.f 

*''At this time, therefore, there were at the Archbishop's 
house, ( besides Bucer ), A'Lasco, Peter Martyr, Pauhis 
Fagius, Peter Alexander, Bernardine Ochin, ***** and 
others whose names do not occm*. " — Str I/pa's Cranmer, 
Vol. IL, p. 142. 

t In a letter to Philip Melancthon, Cranmer says — ''This 
is now my great object. I therefore entreat that you will aid 



OF THE CHURCH. 119 

They would have received a full and perfect 
organization by choosing Bishops for them- 
selves^ and having them consecrated by the 
Bishops of the Church of England ; and then 
the churches^ thus organized^ would have uni- 
ted in a general confederation of all the Prot- 
estant churches^ leaving the domestic concerns 
of each National Church to be settled by its 
own members^ while the whole confederation, 
working in harmony and agreeing in senti- 
ment, would have presented a united and for- 
midable front against the errors and assump- 
tions of Popery. 

Cranmer had some correspondence with 
Calvin and Melancthon upon the subject ; but 
the death of king Edward, shortly after, and 
the troubles with which he found himself com- 
pelled* to battle, prevented any thing further 
from being accomplished. Could Cranmer's 

us with your presence and counsel, and not so fortify your 
<^ mind against my importunity as to appear wanting to your 
own vows, and opposed to the manifest calHng of God. " — 
In March, 1552, he wrote two letters, one to Bullinger, the 
other to Calvin, in each of which he contends that as the 
Papists were assembled at Trent, so the Protestants should 
hold a synod of their most learned men for the settlement 
of doctrine, and that this synod should be held in England, 
or elsewhere, as was most convenient. — Strj/pc's Cranmer ^ 
Fb^.//., p. 191. 



120 HISTOKICAL SKETCHES 

design have been carried out^ and could a con- 
federation have been formed among all reform- 
ers^ which should have recognized only the 
great articles of the Christian faith as binding 
on the conscience^ while it secured to all a valid 
and Apostolic ministry^ with churches organ- 
ized on the same general principles, it would 
seem as if many of the troubles which have 
since afflicted Protestant Christendom would 
have been entirely unknown. 

At that time there were- but few points of 
difference among leading reformers, and those 
might have been disposed of with comparative 
ease ; but, as years have rolled on, these first 
differences of opinion have been magnified 
into articles of faith ^ they have been expanded 
into systems of theology, and whole rivers of 
ink have been wasted in bitter and profitless 
discussions upon them ; churches, colleges, and 
theological schools have been built to perpetu- 
ate them, until now the breach is so wide that 
very few ever think of making the slightest 
attempt to repair it, but go on making it wider 
and wider, bequeathing still greater troubles 
to the generations to come than our fathers 
have bequeathed to us. But it should be a 



OF THE CHURCH. 121 

matter of especial gratification to the members 
of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this 
country, when taunted with being ^^exdusive'' 
and not willing to ''unite'' with other Chris- 
tians, that they can point to the noble martyr, 
Thomas Cranmer, the leading reformer and 
ecclesiastical head of the Church from which 
they trace their descent, as the first and only 
man who ever proposed ^feasible plan for the 
uniting of all Protestant Chnstendom into one 
harmonious body. 

In reviewing the history of the English 
Church during the six years of Edward's reign, 
we find great reason to thank God that the 
chief Eeformer of that age was the highest 
officer in the Church and a leading counsellor 
in the state, so that neither the fear of perse- 
cution, by the civil magistrate, nor of the 
curses of the priesthood, kept men back from 
light and religious freedom. We have also 
reason to thank Grod that he gave to Cranmer 
a spirit of moderation, concihation and pru- 
dence in reforming the doctrines and worship 
of the Church. But chiefly can we thank 
Him, that no real or supposed necessity urged 
Cranmer to commit that fatal mistake^ which 



122 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

was committed by every other leading Eeform- 
er — the mistake of forming a new Church, 
instead of reforming the old one. 

Luther, Calvin, and Knox each founded 
a new Church ; Cranmer only purified from 
its corruptions the old Ghurch of England, 
and left it, after its purification, the same 
Church that he found it, having the same 
Bishops, ministers and people as before — the 
same Church into which he himself was bap- 
tized, when a child, at whose altars he served 
as a minister, and for the love of which he 
afterward cheerfully sacrificed his life in the 
flames. 



■ cai ■ 



OHAPTEK VII. 

The Church in trouble during the reign of Mary. — Arrests 
of the Bishops. — Preaching forbidden. — Mary promises 
submission to Rome. — She begins the persecutions. — 
Rogers, Hooper, Latimer and Ridley burnt alive. — 
Cranmer's trial. — His degradation from office. — His 
recantation. — Is condemned to be burnt. — Takes back 
his recantation. — Mary's persecutions established the 
reformation more firmly. 

In the reign of Henry VIII., we have seen 
the English Church- aroused to a sense of her 
true position as an original Apostolic Church, 
and thereupon casting off the bands which had 
so long kept her in subjection to Eome. Puring 
the short reign of Edward VI., we have seen her 
sowing the good seed of gospel truth, returning 
in all things to primitive principles and primi- 
tive customs, and clearing away the rubbish of 
error from her deep and strong foundations. 
Now, in the reign of Mary, we shall behold her 
faithful reformers in tears and sufferings, in 
trials and persecutions, yet still in confident 
expectation that God would arise for the deliv- 
erance of his Church, and cause the seed already 

sown to bring forth an abundant harvest. 

(123) 



124 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

Mary, the sister and successor of Edward VI., 
was a violent and bigoted Eomanist, and, as 
soon as she came to the throne, she began to 
carry out the plans which she had long before 
decided upon. Her intention was to put a 
stop to the reformation of the Church and 
bring it back into its former subjection to the 
authority of the Pope. Had she lived long 
enough, she might perhaps have accomplished 
her purpose, but, as she only reigned five years, 
she was not able, in that short time, to effect 
anything more than a temporary injury to the 
cause of reform ; and the violent measures 
which she authorized, really helped to complete 
the Eeformation, by showing to the people at 
large how much more in accordance with the 
spirit of the gospel, were the charity and 
moderation of Cranmer, than the bitterness, 
bigotry and cruelty of Mary. 

Her first step was the arrest and imprison- 
ment of Cranmer. In about two months from 
Edward's death she imprisoned him, in the 
Tower of London, on a charge of high treason, 
but in reality because of his sentiments in 
regard to religion. As the proceedings against 
Cranmer were delayed for some time, so that 



OF THE CHURCH. 125 

he did not suffer martyrdom till nearly three 
years afterward^ Mary's course in regard to 
changes in religion, and her persecution of 
less prominent personages, will be considered 
first in order. 

The Queen made no secret of her attachment 
to the Romish doctrines, but, at first, she gave 
assurances that she would not interfere with 
the religion of the people, which promises 
she disregarded as soon almost as they were 
made. Some of the Romish priests, emboldened 
by Mary's expressed opinions, ventured to 
celebrate the mass, and to declaim publicly 
against the reformations effected during Ed- 
ward's reign ; a popular tumult having arisen 
in Xondon, on this account, the Queen took 
advantage of it to forbid all public preaching^ 
thus depriving the reformers of their most 
effective weapon. 

She arrested Ridley, Bishop of London, 
Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, Latimer, Bishop 
of Worcester, the Archbishop of York, and 
most of the leading Protestants in the king- 
dom ; she also ordered all the foreign reformers, 
whom Cranmer had encouraged to settle in 
England, to depart ; and multitudes of the 



126 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

Protestants who had escaped arrest, and were 
able to do so, fled to the continent. Owing to 
the discouragement of the reform party, pro- 
duced by these measures, when Mary's first 
ParUament met, a majority were favorable to 
her, and not a single Bishop of the reforming 
side was allowed to take a seat. 

As soon as the news of Mary's accession 
reached Eome, the Pope sent Cardinal Pole as 
his legate to England, and Mary soon after 
sent a letter in her own handwriting to the 
Pope, promising to return herself, and bring 
her kingdom^ into obedience to the Papal 
authority. 

But Mary found that she had promised too 
much. Her first Parliament absolutely refused 
to revive the laws for the punishment of here- 
tics, and the Queen, finding she could not 
bring them to terms, dissolved the assembly, 
and soon after called a new one. When the 
elections were approaching, orders were sent 
to the sheriffs to have none elected except those 
who were of the queen's belief, and when Par- 
liament assembled, there was not probably a 
single Protestant among its members. Par- 
liament was informed that it was the queen's 



OF THE CHURCH. 127 

wish and expectation that measures should be 
immediately taken to bring the kingdom into 
obedience to the Pope. Therefore they readily 
passed a bill for the punishment of heresy, and 
several others tending to the same result. 

In 1555 the persecutions commenced ; Bish- 
op Hooper and John Kogers, a priest, were 
put upon trial. Hooper was charged with 
marrying ; with maintaining that marriages 
may be legally dissolved for adultery, and that 
persons so released may marry again ; and 
with denying Transubstantiation. He admitted 
the truth of all the charges, and of Transub- 
stantiation he said — " I now affirm that the 
very natural body of Christ is not really and 
substantially present in the sacrament of the 
altar ; I assert, moreover, that the mass is 
idolatrous, and the iniquity of the devil.'' 

Kogers was asked if he would accept the 
queen's mercy, and be reconciled to the 
Gatliolie^ Church. He replied that he '^ had 
never departed from that Church, and that he 

*It will be seen that these martyrs knew the distinction 
between the Catholic Church; of which the Church of 
England had always been a branch, and the Roman Church 
over which the Pope presided. 



128 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

would not purchase the queen's clemency by 
relapsing into Antichristian doctrines/' 

Both Eogers and Hooper were condemned 
to be burnt alive. Eogers was burnt in Lon- 
don on the fourth of February, and Hooper at 
Gloucester, the principal city of his diocese, 
on the ninth. A pardon was offered to each, 
after they were bound to the stake, but each 
steadily refused it. 

After these propitiatory offerings to the 
offended dignity of the Papal authority, a 
splendid embassy was sent to Eome to make a 
formal submission of the kingdom, and to beg 
forgiveness of the Pope for its late resistance 
to his authority. 

And then the persecutions began again ; 
Bishops Latimer and Eidley were brought for 
trial before Brookes^the Pope's delegate, who 
was now Bishop of Gloucester, and similar 
proceedings were had as in the trials of Hooper 
and Eogers ; both refused to acknowledge 
the Papal authority, or to deny the doctrines 
of the reformed Church of England ; and 
both were condemned to be degraded from 
their office and burnt alive. On the 16th of 
October they were both burnt, and as the fire 



/ OF THE CHURCH. 129 

was applied, Latimer addressed his fellow 
raartyr in these words — ^^Be of good comfort, 
master Eidley, and play the man. We shall 
tliis day, by God's grace, light in England such 
a candle as I trust shall never be put out.'' 

But the most distinguished Reformer was 
yet to be tried. Cranmer's associates had all 
preceded him to martyrdom, and every means 
was used that could possibly be brought to 
bear, to destroy him morally before he was 
committed to the flames. 

On September 12th, 1555, he was brought 

up for trial before Brookes^ the Papal delegate, 

and charged with heresy, perjury, treason and 

adultery. Cranmer, being called on for his 

defence, knelt down and repeated the Lord's 

Prayer ; he then rose, and having repeated the 

Creed, proceeded to deny the authority of the 

Pope, to inveigh against the practice of saying 

prayers in the Latin language, and to defend 

what he had written and taught against Tran- 

substantiation. The next day he was cited to 

appear in person, before the Pope, within 

eighty days, and was then sent back to prison. 

While there he wrote a manly letter to the 

Queen, wherein he stated his reasons for deny- 

9 



130 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

ing the Pope's supremacy ; which letter was 
answered by Cardinal Pole, at the instance ot 
the Queen. Pole's reply is worthy of note, 
because it admits that Cranmer, during his 
administration, did not cause any one to be 
put to death for his religious opinions. As 
soon as the eighty days had elapsed, the Pope 
condemned him and appointed Cardinal Pole 
Archbishop of Canterbury, in Cranmer's stead. 
On February 14th, 1556, Bonner, Bishop of 
London, and Thirlby, Bishop of Ely, acting as 
Papal commissioners, proceeded to try Cran- 
mer. The commission was read, dwelling as 
usual on the Papal impartiality, and stating 
what ample time had been given to the accused 
to proceed with his appeal and defence. "My 
Lord,'' cried Cranmer, "what lies be these, that 
I, being continually in prison, and never suf- 
fered to have counsel or advocate at home, 
should procure witness and appoint counsel at 
Eome. God must needs punish this open and 
shameless falsehood." 

When the commission was read, the various 
Komish vestments (made of canvas^ by way of 
insult), were produced, and he was arrayed in 
them ; a mock mitre was placed on his head, 



OF THE CHURCH. 131 

ai^ A mock crosier in his hand. The brutal 
Bonner then began to scoff at him. "This is 
the man/' cried he, "that hath despised the 
Pope^ and now is to be judged by him ; this 
is the man that hath pulled down so many 
churches, and now is come to be judged in a 
church ; this is the man that hath contemned 
the blessed sacrament, and now is come to be 
condemned before that sacrament.'' When 
they came to strip him of his mock robes of 
office, as they attempted to take away the 
crosier or pastoral staffs Cranmer held it fast 
and drew from his sleeve an appeal to the 
next free, general council. 

Cranmer was now degraded from office, and, 
in order to undo as much as possible the refor- 
mation that he had been so active in further- 
ing, all means were used to make him recant 
and acknowledge that the cause of the Keform- 
ation was wrong. He, who had been subjected 
to such gross injustice and indignity, was now 
surrounded by persons who treated him with 
the greatest respect and kindness, and was 
assured of the kind regard which the Queen 
had for him, and urged to conciliate her by a 
recantation. At last he did sign a recantation, 



132 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

for firmness was not a virtue that he possessed 
in a high degree, and it was almost the only- 
virtue for which he was not eminent. 

But to the eternal disgrace of his persecu- 
torSj and happily for the cause of reformation, 
it was resolved to have Cranmer hurnt, not- 
withstanding his recantation. The sentence 
was not made knoTMi to him till the day of execu- 
tion. He was taken to St. Mary's Church, 
where a sermon was preached assigning the 
reasons why a heretic should be burnt, although 
he was penitent. He was then called on by the 
preacher to make a confession of his faith, that 
all present might know that he had abjured 
liis former oj)inions ; — ^^ I will do it, '' said 
Cranmer, ^^ and that with a good will.'' He 
then rose and addressed the people, ^exhorting 
them to follow peace and charity ; then he 
declared his belief in the Creed, and all things 
taught in the Old and New Testaments ; '^And 
now," said he, ^^I am come to the great thing 
that troubleth my conscience more than any 
other thing that 1 ever said or did in my life, 
and that is the setting abroad of writings con- 
trary to the truth ; which here I now renounce 
and refuse as things written with my hand, 



OF THE CHURCH. 133 

contrary to the truth which I thought in my 
heart, and writ for fear of death, and to save 
my life if might be ; and that is all such 
papers as I have written or signed since my 
degradation, wherein I have written many 
things untrue ; and forasmuch as my hand 
offended in writing contrary to my heart, my 
hand, when I come to the fire, shall first be 
burned. And as for the Pope, I refuse him as 
Christ's enemy and Antichrist, with all his 
false doctrine/^ 

He was then cut short in his discourse and 
hurried to the stake, where he again declared 
that ^^he repented his recantation right sore ; " 
and as the flames rose around him he was seen 
to thrust oat his hand into the fire, where it 
was plainly seen burning some time before the 
flames reached any other part of his body, and 
was heard to exclaim with a loud voice, ^^this 
hand hath offended/' 

The reign of Mary now drew near its close; 
she was suffering from disease, and the convic- 
tion that her cruelties had not profited the 
cause they were designed to build up, together 
with her domestic troubles, brought her to the 
grave about twenty months after the execution 



134 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

of Oranmer.^^ ^^With the death of Mary 
ended forever the dominion of Popery in Eng- 
land. The cruelties perpetrated hy her were 
even of advantage to the reformed faith. 

^^ The English nation is naturally averse to 
cruelty^ and the sight of the constancy, and 
even exultation, with which the martyrs met 
their fate, while it caused pity and admiration 
for the sufferers, inspired a natural favor towards 
the rehgion which enabled men to die thus 
cheerfully, and raised doubts as to the truth 
of the system which required the aid of the 
stake and fagot. Hence many who were 
Eomanists at the commencement of Mary^s 
reign, were Protestants at its close ; and 
hence her successor found so little difficulty 
in establishing the reformed faith. 

" The number of those who perished iri the 
Jiames during the four years of persecution, 
was little short of three hundred^ of whom 
more than a sixth were women, and some were 

* '' Of all time since the conquest, her (Mary's) Raigne 
was the shortest, onely excepting that of Richard the Tyrant, 
but much more bloudy than was his, and more bloud spilt 
in that short time of her Raigne than had been shed for 
case of Christianity in any King's time since Lucius, the 
first establisher of the Gospel in this Realme." — Historie of 
Great Britaine, 2d Edit. Inj John Speedy London 1623, p. 1145. 



OF THE CHURCH. 135 

children and even babes. There were ^ve 
Bishops and twenty-one of the other clergy 
among the victims/'^' 

*Keightley's Hist, of Eng. Chap. 8 — which is the au- 
thority for most of the statements in this chapter. 



CHAPTER VIIL 

The Church during the reign of Elizabeth. — Romish Bishops 
removed. — The succession continued. — Fable of the 
''Nag's Head" ordination. — The consecrations valid. — 
The Bishops were exiled but not degraded by Mary. — 
Only one Church in England in the first of Ehzabeth's 
reign. — Disputes about trifles. — Want of charity. — 
Religious and political questions closely connected. — 
Quarrel about surplices. — Strictness of Ehzabeth. — Sign 
of the cross in Baptism. — Organs. — Church music. — Right 
of choosing ministers. — Want of presbytery. — The Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church grant more than the Puritans 
asked. 

When Elizabeth came to the throne, at the 
death of Mary, she brouscht with her a personal 
popularity such as few rulers have at the begin- 
ning of their reign ; she had suffered severely 
from Mary's bigotry and personal jealousy, but 
had borne herself with such patience and 
firmness that she had thereby gained many 
friends ; her title to the throne was undisputed, 
and Tier personal appearance and manner were 
very captivating. She was known to be a thor- 
ough Protestant in sentiment, but she wished to 
conciliate all parties by adopting moderate 
and prudent measures, and taking every suita- 
(136) 



OF THE CHURCH. 137 

ble means to bring all her subjects to a sub- 
stantial agreement in matters of religion. 

Her first care was to restore all things to the 
state in which they had been left at the death 
of Edward VI.^ but no hasty or violent steps 
were taken to bring about this result. The 
first act of Parliament, in her reign, was to 
restore to the Queen the fullest authority over 
all persons civil or ecclesiastical, which of course 
excluded all foreign jurisdiction, and particu- 
larly that of the Pope. The use of the Prayer 
Book was again authorized, and that gave back 
to the laity the privilege of partaking of both 
the bread and wine in the Holy Communion, 
which had been denied in Mary's reign. The 
queen's injunctions allowed the clergy to 
marry, under certain restrictions, and a com- 
mission was appointed to examine into eccle- 
siastical matters throughout the kingdom. All 
persons holding civil offices and all the clergy 
were required to take an oath to support the 
queen's supremacy, under penalty of losing 
their positions. Nearly all the inferior clergy 
took the required oath without hesitation, and 
not one in fifty was removed in consequence of 
refusing to take it. But only one of the 



138 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

Bishops would take the oath (Bishop Kitchin 
of Llandaflf)^ and the others were all ejected 
from their dioceses. But they were treated in 
a very different manner from that in which 
Mary treated the Bishops who would not come 
into her views ; none of them^ not even the 
brutal and persecuting Bonner^ was degraded 
from office, and they were all allowed quietly 
to retire to private life and end their days in 
peace/'*' 

These Bishops having all been appointed in 
Mary's reign, and being zealous friends of the 
Komish doctrines, it was very greatly to the 
advantage of the cause of reformation that 
they refused to hold their positions when 
required to take the oath of supremacy ; but 
their removal came near creating another 
serious difficulty, as there were not Bishops 
enough left to consecrate those who were 
appointed to take their places. 

But the good providence of Grod had pre- 
pared a way by which this difficulty could be 
and was overcome, and the Apostolic Succession 
was preserved, without breaking the line of 

* Seabury, p. 85, 



OF THE CHURCH. 139 

descent^ in the Church of England^ or going 
outside of it to procure lawful consecrators. 

During the persecutions of Mary's reign, 
several of the Bishops of the reform party^ after 
they had been ejected from their dioceses^ fled 
to Germany and Switzerland^ where they 
remained till the accession of Elizabeth. Four 
of these Bishops^ having returned to England^ 
assisted in consecrating Matthew Parker as 
Archbishop of Canterbury^ and also in conse- 
crating other Bishops, and thus continued the 
succession of Bishops in the English Church 
without any break or foreign interference. 

The consecration of Archbishop Parker took 
place in the chapel of Lambeth Palace, 
Dec. 17th, 1559. His consecrators were Scory, 
formerly Bishop of Chichester, Barlow, formerly 
Bishop of Wells, Coverdale, formerly Bishop 
of Exeter, and Hodgkin, suffragan Bishop of 
Bedford. 

The authentic documents in regard to this 
consecration are in existence, and there is no 
more doubt in regard to the correctness of the 
facts, than in regard to the coronation of Queen 
Elizabeth. Yet, a story was manufactured by 
the Komanists, some forty years afterward, to 



140 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

this eflfect^ that these Bishops elect met at a 
tavern called the "Nag's Head/' and when 
Oglethorpe, one of the Komish Bishops, refused 
to consecrate them, Scory laid a Bible on each 
of their heads, and bade them rise up Bishops. 
This story is absurd on its face, so much so 
that Lingard, the Komish historian of England, 
calls it a fable, and treats it with contempt. ^^ 

There is no doubt but all the Bishops con- 
secrated in Elizabeth's reign were solemnly 
set apart to their office after the prescribed 
form, because Elizabeth was the last person to 
have permitted any irregular or clandestine 
performances ; and the only question that can 
be raised is, whether these Bishops, who return- 
ed from exile, had still the right to consecrate 
other Bishops, if called upon to do so. If 

*'"The ceremony was performed, though with a little 
variation, according to the ordinal of Edward YI Two of 
the consecrators, Barlow and Hodgkin, had been ordained 
Bishops according to the Roman pontifical, the other two 
according to the reformed ordinal. Of this consecration, 
on the 17th of December, there can be no doubt ; perhaps 
in the interval between the refusal of the Catholic prelates 
and the performance of the ceremony, some meeting may 
have taken place at Nag's head, which gave rise to the story." 
—Lingardh Hist, of Eng., Vol. VII. p. 293. 

The consecration took place in the chapel of the Arch- 
bishop's palace at Lambeth, the record wTcS entered in the 
Archbishop's register, and the original copy is still in the 
library of Corpus Christi College at Cambndge. 



OF THE CHURCH. 141 

they were lawful Bishops themselves they cer- 
tainly had that right ^ and it will be very easy 
to show that they were lawful Bishops. 

They were all regularly appointed and con- 
secrated in the reign of Edward VI.^ and no 
one pretends that at that time they were not 
lawful Bishops ; in Mary's reign they were 
driven out of their dioceses, and were obliged 
to take refuge abroad, but Mary did not have 
them degraded from office nor excommunica- 
ted, and therefore they remained in possession 
of all the spiritual powers which they ever 
possessed, except that they were driven from 
the dioceses over which they had presided and 
not allowed to exercise their office there. 

But, having been once entrusted with the 
powers of a Bishop, that power remained in 
their hands until it was taken away by the 
same authority that conferred it — that is, by 
a formal deposition from the office of a Bishop, 
pronounced aftsi a regular trial, and by a Bish- 
op or court of Bishops. Cranmer was deposed 
before he was burnt, but these exiled Bishops 
were never deposed nor even put upon trial, 
and therefore they were Bishops still when 
they came back from exile, and were just as 



142 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

competent to discharge the duties of Bishops 
as if they had ne\er left the kingdom. 

Queen Mary did not take away their minis- 
tei'ial authority when she ejected them from 
their dioceses^ for she could not take away that 
which she did not and could not give. She 
took away their situations and their salaries, 
for these were under her control, but as she 
did not consecrate nor Tnahe them Bishops she 
could not unmake them by driving them into 
exile. 

Queen Elizabeth having now filled up the 
vacant Bishoprics with men of tried integrity 
and or sound Protestant principles ; having 
restored the Prayer Book and abolished the 
superstitious practices which Papal influence 
had introduced into the Church of England ; 
having also set forth the articles of religion 
and the book of homilies which state and ex- 
plain the doctrines of the Church as they are 
now held, we may consider the Church of 
England as completely reformed, so far as her 
doctrine and worship were concerned. 

No important alteration has been made in 
either the doctrine or the worship of the Church 
since the days of Elizabeth — a period of three 



OF THE OHURCH. 143 

hundi ed years — and it must be considered a 
striking proof of the wisdom of the successive 
reformers of the English Church that their 
work has remained unchanged for three centu- 
ries, while that of all the continental reformers 
has been revised and re-modelled by almost 
every generation that has succeeded thenx. 
It is also a fact worthy of especial notice that, 
at the period of the completion of the refor- 
mation of the Church under Elizabeth, there 
was but one Church in the whole of England.'^ 

The Eomanist party, having been treated 
with moderation and kindness, and having 
doubtless been convinced in a great measure of 
their previous errors, were satisfied to remain 
in the English reformed Church and had no 
separate congregations of their own; and the 
other parties who have since created so many 
divisions and so much bitterness and discord, 
had not then gone to extremes in regard to 
their opinions on matters of trifling importance. 

It would be pleasant to be able to record 

* The Romanist party continued in the reformed Church 
of England and acquiesced in all its measures until the 
twelfth year of Elizabetli's reign, when the Pope by a bull 
dated April 27th, 1570, prohibited them from doing so, and 
thus caused a schism in the Church. 



144 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

that this harmony had never been disturbed, 
but all are familiar with the fact that there are 
now^ and for a long time have been^ manifold 
differences and many separate bodies of Chris- 
tians^ each claiming to be the nearest right in 
doctrine and worship. 

In order to contribute something to the 
restoration of our lost harmony^ the succeeding 
portion of this book will be devoted mainly to 
setting forth the origin of the several denomi- 
nations which have separated from the reformed 
Church of England^ with the reasons which 
moved them to separate. As we learn how 
small were the differences that separated our 
fathers, may we learn wisdom for ourselves, 
and with wisdom, Christian forbearance and 
charity ; — for as we study the causes which 
conspired to produce the various separations 
from the Church of England, we may find 
abundant evidence of the truth of St. Paul's 
statement, that all spiritual gifts, all insight 
into the deep mysteries of theology, and all 
faith in any system of religion, are of less prac- 
tical value than the single virtue of charity. 

As soon as the greatest danger was past, 
when the power of the Pope was totally nulli- 



OF THE CHURCH. 143 

fied in England, when the doctrines of the 
Church had been thoroughly purged of all the 
corruptions that had been borrowed from Kome, 
and men of piety and learning had been 
appointed as its chief pastors, when the 
reformed Church of England was just fairly 
entering upon the great work of elevating the 
nation to the standard of the Bible, there arose 
fierce and bitter disputes about small matters 
of opinion, which disputes, both by their sub- 
ject matter and the manner in which they were 
managed, proved most plainly that, in the 
reformation, charity had not kept pace wij^h 
faith and zeal and knowledge. 

Before proceeding to notice these disputes 
and their consequences, it is necessary to 
observe that there are still many things which 
might be improved in the practical working of 
the English Church, — that there are many 
things which her most devoted friends and most 
pious members would alter if they had the 
power. But these defects in the working of 
the English Church are principally caused by 
its union ivith the state, and are not felt in the 
Protestant Episcopal Church in this country. 

It should also be noticed tliat none of those 

10 



146 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

who at first found fault with and afterward 
separated from the English Churchy ever 
objected to this union of Church and State, or 
sought to have it dissolved. On the contrary, 
as soon as they obtained sufficient power, they 
made their own the established religion, they 
connected it with the state just as much as the 
Church of England ever was, and required all 
persons to conform to tliew worship and doc- 
trines, under as severe penalties as were ever 
enacted in behalf of the reformed Church of 
England. 

All the controversies on religious matters, 
which arose during the reign of Elizabeth and 
afterward, are so intimately connected with 
"political questions, on account of the connection 
of Church and State, that it is hard to treat 
of them separately ; yet, as we, in this day and 
in this country, are no longer concerned about 
the politics of England in times long past, 
while we are concerned to know the religious 
differences of our fathers, since these differences 
have continued to our day, and have caused us 
to differ ; therefore, the political side of the con- 
troversies which are to be noticed will be passed 
by with as little notice as justice will permit, and 



OF THE CHURCH. 147 

the disputed questions will be presented in their 
religious aspect alone, so far as can be done. 

The first subject of dispute between the 
different parties in the Church, was in regard 
to the use of the surplice and other ecclesias- 
tical dresses. Those of the clergy who had 
been in exile, during the persecution in Queen 
Mary's reign, had been accustomed, at Geneva 
and other places, to many practices very differ- 
ent from those of the Church of England, and, 
among others, to see ministers officiate in their 
ordinary dress. They argued that it was sin- 
ful to use any dresses which had been used in 
the Eoman Church ; the other party main- 
tained that the use of these dresses was a matter 
of small consequence, and that as it had been 
the custom to use them, and as the laiu required 
it, no one ought to have any scruple on the 
subject. It is hardly necessary to show that 
this latter opinion is the correct one, — that, 
as there can be no sin in wearing a suqDlice, 
and as it can be no special evidence of godliness 
not to wear one, so no man ought to disturb 
the peace and unity of the Church on account 
of such a trifling matter, but should give up 
his own opinion on a matter of taste^ rather 



148 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

than be the means of causing division and 
contention on account of it. 

Had it not been for the connection between 
the Church and the State^ this dispute would 
probably have died away ; but Queen Eliza- 
beth was very peremptory on this matter and 
would yield nothing to the scruples of those 
who objected to the use of the surplice^ while 
they were .equally determined not to submit. 
Elizabeth ordered the Bishops to enforce the 
law requiring the use of the surplice, and those 
who refused to use it were accordingly deprived 
of their preferments. But had the Bishops 
been permitted to use more lenity they would 
doubtless have soon overcome the scruples of 
those who disliked to wear the surplice ; and 
had the latter possessed half as much charity as 
they had firmness^ they would have yielded 
their preferences for the sake of Christian 
harmony. 

In connection with the dispute in regard to 
ecclesiastical dresses, other things of a like 
indifferent character were objected to. It was 
complained that the sign of the cross used in 
Baptism was unscriptural, and that the an- 
swers of the sponsors were made in the name 



OF THE CHURCH. 149 

of the child and not in the name of the spon- 
sors themselves. 

The use of organs and Church music was also 
a cause of considerable objection to the worship 
of the Church. All candid and unprejudiced 
minds will now be ready to admit that it is 
purely a question of taste whether organs and 
church music shall be used^ and indeed there 
is now but little difference upon this question, 
between the Episcopal Churches of England 
and America and those who have separated 
from them, for other denominations use organs 
and church music as much as we do. It was 
not a sufficient reason for separation in the first 
place, and it certainly can be no reason for re- 
maining separated J now that both parties think 
alike upon the subject. In regard to the sign 
of the cross in Baptism, it is now provided that 
it may be dispensed with, if the sponsors de- 
sire it, and if this provision had been made at 
first,*' as it should have been, the result would 
have been just what it is now in the Church 
in this country, — not one in a thousand would 
ever have asked to have it omitted. 

*King Charles, in 1660, granted a liberty to dispense 
with the sign of the cross in Baptism. 



150 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

It is worthy of note that no objections were 
made by the puritan party to any of the doc- 
trines of the Church of England^ and as- those 
doctrines were exactly the same as are now 
held by the English and the American Epis- 
coj)al OhurcheS; it would seem to be a natural 
conclusion that if the descendants of the Pu- 
ritans hold to the principles of their fathers 
they caR make no objection to the doctrines 
now taught by these churches 

In the matter of Gliurcli government several 
things were complained of by the Puritans, 
some of which were evils resulting from the 
union of Church and State, which have since 
been rectified in the American Episcopal Church, 
and some were principles sanctioned by Scrip- 
ture and the usages of the primitive Church. 

One thing which was strongly opposed was 
the practice of settling clergymen over parishes 
without the consent of the congregation being 
asked. This practice still exists to a certain 
extent in the Church of England, owing to 
peculiar causes which it would occupy too much 
space to attempt to explain. It is sufficient 
to say that it is one of the evils in the govern- 
ment of the Enerlish Church which had its 



OF THE CHURCH. 151 

origin at a very earlv period^ and it is so inter- 
woven with the peculiar structure of English 
society^ that it will ever be one of the most 
difficult things to alter that could be attempted. 
But when our branch of the Church was 
organized^ this evil was done away; it was 
provided that every organized congregation 
should have the right to choose its own minis- 
ter^ which was precisely the thing that the 
Puritans asked for in Queen Elizabeth's time ; 
could they have enjoyed the liberty which we 
now give^ they would have required no more. 
Another matter which was complained of 
by the Puritans, was the want of a Presbytery 
in the English Church. Those who had been 
at Q-eneva, where Calvin had set up a Church 
without any Bishops, had been accustomed to 
see the pastors of the diiferent congregations 
exercising considerable influence in the ojovern- 
ment of the Church, and they were dissatisfied 
that they were not permitted to enjoy the same 
privilege in the English Church. There is 
abundant evidence that in the days of the 
Apostles, and in the ages immediately succeed- 
ing, the presbyters, and even the laity were 
permitted to share in the government of tlie 



152 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

Churchy and the Puritans had just reason and 
scriptural authority for asking that the pres- 
byters should be consulted in the government 
of the Church. But it did not suit Queen 
Elizabeth to share her power with those who 
were more justly entitled to it^ nor has it since 
suited the English government to allow the 
presbyters of the Church to have any control 
over matters that so deeply interest them., 
though they have earnestly and often sought 
to obtain this concession. In the American 
Episcopal Church, however, being unfettered 
by any state alliances, we have returned more 
nearly to the primitive Church than even the 
Puritans sought to do, and in all our Church 
assemblies the Bishops, the presbyters, and 
even the laity ^ have a voice and a vote in the 
decision of every question. Could the puritan 
presbyters of Elizabeth's time have lived in our 
day they would have seen their wishes more 
than satisfied in the Protestant Episcopal 
Church of America. 

But in one point, whichthese Puritans wish- 
ed to have altered, there has been no alteration, 
and it is to be hoped there never will be. 
They objected to the Bishops as a third and 



OF THE CHURCH. 153 

Ixighest order in the ministry^ asserting, after 
the exami:)le of Calvin, that there were but 
two permanent orders, the Presbyters and 
Deacons, and that the superiority of Bishops 
was only a human ordinance and not something 
established by the Apostles. In this matter 
also it is more than likely that the connection 
between Church and State was the real cause 
of their dissatisfaction with the Bishops, and 
there is very little question that if the Bishops 
of the Church of England had been elected 
by the clergy and laity, as our Bishops are, 
and had been occupied solely with their proper 
spiritual duties, as ours are, the Puritans 
would have submitted to their authority, 
without a word of remonstrance. 

An English Bishop in Queen Elizabeth's 
time, and even down to our own day, is an 
anomaly. He is solemnly consecrated for a 
spiritual work, that is, to ordain and govern 
the clergy, to oversee ancl confirm the laity, 
and to take care that error and corruption are 
driven away from the Church. 

But in the first place the English Bishop is 
chosen by the government^ which may select 
and often has selected its own political favor- 



154 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

ites without much regard to their fitness far 
the office. Every unworthy man whom the gov- 
ernment puts into the sacred office of a Bishop 
lowers its estimation in the eyes of the peo- 
ple, who cannot readily distinguish between 
the office and the man who holds it. The 
English Bishop is also a lord^ who takes 
rank with the aristocracy ; who has a large rev- 
enue^ and is expected to spend it in maintain- 
ing his rank ; who has a seat and a vote in the 
house of lords^ and must therefore be con- 
stantly occupied, to some extent, in politics, to 
the neglect of his spiritual duties. 

Besides these anomalous duties, in Queen 
Elizabeth's time and long afterwards the 
Bishops were compelled, by the government, to 
be the executors of very many harsh and intol- 
erant laws, which created much bitterness of 
feeling against them that ought rather to have 
been directed against the government. 

The Puritans, having no idea of a Church 
except as supported by the state, were not 
able to see that the things which they most 
disliked about the Bishops were caused by 
their position as officers of the state, rather 
than as officers of the Church. They did not 



OF THE CHURCH. 155 

distinguish between the temporal power and 
the spiritual office of the Bishops, and, be- 
cause the former was oppressive to them, they 
denied their right to the latter. 

Actuated by the scruples which I have 
named, and others of like character, a consid- 
erable number of the clergy refused to conform 
to the law enforcing uniformity, and were de- 
prived of their situations. Some of these, in 
the year 1572, formed themselves into a Pres- 
bytery, at Wandsworth, which was the begin- 
ning of Presbyterianism in England. Kobert 
Browne, who was the founder of the sect called 
Brownists, at that time, and afterward Inde- 
pendents, organized his disciples into congre- 
gations about the same time. These were the 
first organizations of those who differed from 
the Church, and were the starting points of 
the Presbyterian and Congregational denom- 
inations in England. 

Let us now compare the original demands of 
the puritan party with the present doctrines 
and practices of the American Episcopal 
Church, and we shall find but one point which 
they asked for that has not either been grant- 
ed or is not now regarded as unimportant. 



156 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

That point was the existence of Bishops as a 
distinct order. The Puritans supposed there 
was no scriptural authority for the order of 
Bishops ; but the Scriptures had not then been 
thoroughly investigated on this subject^ as they 
have been since. We now ask for no book but 
the New Testament to prove that the order of 
Bishops is of divine appointment and was in- 
tended to be perpetual Only one real point 
of difference between the founders of the Pres- 
byterian and Congregational denominations 
and the Protestant Ej^iscopal Church of the 
present day ; and for that one point what a 
long list of evils have we endured^ in the 
divisions of three hundred years^ and how 
manifold more are we likely to endure in 
time to come ! 



OHAPTEE IX. 



The iriumpli of the Puritan party. — High views on the 
divine right of kings. — The Bishops take sides with the 
king. — Bishops opposed on pohtical grounds. — Puritans 
ask further concessions — some are granted. — King 
James' Bible. — Sunday sports permitted. — Inflexibility 
of Archbishop Laud. — The Long Parliament not a Pres- 
byterian body. — Puritans attempt to destroy the Church, 
but do not succeed. 

The religious and political histories, of the 
period of nearly sixty years after the death of 
Queen Elizabeth, are so intimately connected 
as to be really inseparable, and, therefore, in 
order to understand the religious changes which 
were effected during this period, it will first be 
necessary to take a view of the state of politi- 
cal opinions in England, at the close of the 
reign of Elizabeth. 

She had reigned about forty-five years, and 
during this long period the English nation had 
become thoroughly Protestant, 

The Church of England, as a reformed and 

Protestant Church, had taken deep root. Her 

doctrines were those once delivered to the 

Saints, her usages primitive and Apostolic, and 

were entirely satisfactory to the vast majority 

(157) 



158 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

of the nation. The word of God was in the 
hands of the people, and was read, in large 
portions, on every occasion of public worship ; 
its doctrines were faithfully set forth in the 
sermons of the clergy, and able works on theol- 
ogy appeared from the pens of the learned. 

The result was that men universally began 
to thinh, education became more general, and 
freedom of thought and of speech was the 
order of the day. But when men had learned 
to think for themselves in religion, they could 
not be restrained from doing the same in regard 
to other subjects, and those who had been set 
free from tyranny in religion were not inclined 
to submit quietly to tyranny in politics. Men 
began to study the relative duties of kings and 
their subjects, and to desire more political 
freedom than they had heretofore enjoyed. 
And, as might be supposed, those who had the 
clearest views of religious liberty, were also 
those who most wished for civil liberty, and 
therefore they were mostly religious men who 
sought to promote political reform. 

After the death of Elizabeth, her successor, 
James I., adopted a line of policy every way 
calculated to excite the fears, the jealousy, and 



OF THE CHURCH. 159 

the determined opposition of all those who 
wished for constitutional government and polit- 
ical freedom. He held very high views in 
regard to the divine right of kings ; he main- 
tained that all power was vested in them by- 
express grant from God, and that the people 
had no right to question the wisdom or justice 
of their acts. He wished to be an absolute 
monarch, and strove to evade all those checks 
upon kingly power, which the English consti- 
tution had placed in the hands of Parliament. 

His successor, Charles I., though his private 
character was far superior to that of James, 
adopted the same public policy, and held the 
same views in regard to his kingly prerogative. 

The mass of educated and influential men in 
the nation had now adopted opinions on these 
subjects contrary to those held by James and 
Charles. They held that the king was bound 
to govern according to established law, and not 
according to his own will and pleasure ; that 
the king had no right to make laws nor to alter 
them, as the power to do this was vested in the 
Parliament ; and especially that he had no right 
to levy taxes without the express permission of 
Parliament. 



160 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

Thus there were two parties in the state ; 
on the one side was the king and a small 
minority of the nation^ claiming^ for the sove- 
reign^ absolute power ; on the other side was 
the majority of the people^ striving to limit 
that power within the bounds of law. 

The question, it will readily be seen, was 
purely a political one ; let us now see how it 
came to pass that the Church was dragged into 
it, and it will be found that in this case, as in 
nearly every other, the connection of the Church 
with the state was the real source of all the 
evil that befel her. 

In the first place, the Bishops were all 
appointed by the Crown, and, of course, only 
such as coincided with the views of the king 
were placed in that high station. There- 
fore the mere fact that all the chief officers of 
the Church were of the king's party in politics, 
created a prejudice against the Bishops in the 
eyes of their political opponents. Again, the 
Bishops, as members of Parliament, used their 
votes in support of the king's measures, which 
still further excited the anger of those who 
opposed those measures ; — and, worse than 
all, several of the Bishops held honorable and 



OF THE CHURCH. 161 

lucrative offices in the government, which was 
plainly incompatible with the proper discharge 
of their spiritual duties. Archbishop Laud, 
for example, was for a long time the Prime 
Minister of Charles I. 

Thus the Bishops came to be regarded as the 
main supporters of the king ; they were com- 
pletely identified with his political party, and 
whatever odium rested on the king for his 
arbitrary and unlawful acts, rested equally on 
the Bishops, as his advisers and supporters. 

In a similar way, all the clergy were brought 
under the same odium ; for when Charles I. 
was unable to obtain a grant of money from his 
Parliament, in the regular and lawful manner, 
he had recourse to a most unjust and illegal 
mode of getting it, namely, by compelling the 
people to loan it to him. In order to accom- 
plish his object, the Bishops were directed to 
order their clergy to preach upon the lawfulness 
of this mode of obtaining money, and to assert 
the divine right of the king to do as he saw fit. 
Many of the clergy demurred, and did not obey 
this order, and thus, to some extent, the clergy 
took sides against their Bishops. 

It would be unprofitable, as it is unnecessary, 

11 



162 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

to give in detail the various arbitrary acts of 
the king, and the ways in which the clergy 
were made to share in the odium attached to 
these acts^ since they were all of a like charac- 
ter^ being the offspring of a determination, on 
the part of the sovereign, to get rid of all checks 
upon his authority. 

It was the misfortune of the Church, that 
the appointment of her Bishops and chief 
dignitaries was in the hands of the king, and 
that he was thus enabled to use the influence of 
the Bishops, and of many of the clergy, against 
the liberties of the people ; and the fact of the 
Bishops' consenting to be so used, raised up, 
against their order, the hostility of all who 
sought to maintain their political freedom, 
even though they belonged to and loved the 
Church. They were willing to submit to the 
authority of the Bishops, as officers of the 
Ohurch^ but when the Bishops acted as officers 
of the State^ and, as such, labored to make the 
government arbitrary and unconstitutional, they 
were constrained to oppose them. 

If there had been any way in which to oppose 
the temporal power of the Bishops, without at 
the same time attacking their spiritual author- 



OF THE CHURCH. 163 

ity, the majority of their opponents would 
have done this ; but^ as it was^ they saw that 
the whole body of Bishops were in the way of 
their liberties^ and thus a powerful party was 
formed, whose watchword was -^down with 
Episcopacy. " 

Having now sketched the causes which gave 
rise to a large party opposed to the Bishops on 
political grounds, it will next be shown how a 
smaller party arose who were opposed to them 
in religious Ta^itQx^ J and who assumed the name 
of Puritans. 

The Puritan party originated, as was shown 
in the last chapter, in the reign of Elizabeth, 
and consisted of those who objected to certain 
ceremonies used in the Church service, and to 
certain defects in the discipline of the Church. 

When James I. came to the throne, the 
Puritans had great hopes of obtaining from 
him such alterations in the Church service 
and discipline, as would render both more ac- 
ceptable to them. They accordingly presented 
to him a petition, numerously signed, request- 
ing that certain alterations might be made. 
Upon the receipt of this petition he appointed 
a conference to take place, in his presence. 



164 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

between the leading puritan divines and a 
selected number of the Bishops. 

The objections presented by the Puritans 
were of the same character with those which 
they urged in the reign of Elizabeth^ but con- 
siderably more numerous. In doctrine, they 
objected to the article on Predestination, 
wishing to have it framed more strongly in 
favor of that doctrine, and proposed a few 
unimportant changes in the wording of other 
articles. They also repeated the objections 
formerly urged against the use of the surplice, 
the sign of the cross in Baptism, the ring in mar- 
riage, and some other unimportant matters. 
They also requested that a new translation of 
the Bible might be made, in which request the 
Bishops also joined, and King James' version, 
or our present English Bible, is the result of 
that conference. 

But few of the alterations asked for by the 
Puritans, at this conference, were made, the 
others being regarded by the king as trifling 
and unnecessary. The Puritans seem, how- 
ever, to have been partially satisfied with these 
concessions, and, by the occasional license given 
to over-scrupulous clergymen to omit the use of 



OF THE CHURCH. 165 

the surplico ; but then a new question arose in 
regard to observing the Lord's Day, which 
gave additional strength to the puritan party. 

During the period in which the Church of 
England was in subjection to the Papal rule, 
much laxity had prevailed in regard to the 
observance of the Lord's Day ; but as the 
principles of religion became better understood, 
the more religious people began to be more 
strict in the observance of the day, and many 
went to great extremes in their strictness. It 
had been customary for the poorer classes to have 
various amusements on Sunday afternoon, 
which gave great offence to those who desired 
to have the day strictly observed, and they 
petitioned to have these games forbidden. 

At this the Court took offence, and the king 
issued a proclamation authorizing the Sunday 
sports, and commanding that they should not 
be interfered with ; and the clergy were direct- 
ed to read this proclamation in their churches. 
A few complied, others read only a part of it, 
and many refused to read it at all. Those 
who refused were punished with more or less 
severity, according to the views of the different 
Bishops ; but the whole proceeding, being 



166 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

advised, as was supposed, by Laud, who was 
both Archbishop and Prime Minister, created 
great prejudice against liim^ and indirectly 
against the Bishops and the Church, and so 
turned many of the more religious to the pu- 
ritan party. 

Archbishop Laud was also guilty of another 
piece of folly, which added still more to the 
strength of the Puritans. As has been stated, 
they were over-scrupulous about certain cere- 
monies, and magnified them into matteis of 
serious importance ; Laud did the same thing, 
but in the opposite direction. They desired 
fewer ceremonies, and he commanded more to 
be observed than the Prayer Book authorized, 
and thus when there was need of moderate 
and conciliatory measures, he adopted extreme 
ones, and enforced them with severity, which 
diverted still more to the puritan party. 

Such was the origin and such were the views 
of the puritan party. Their leading aim was 
to check the arbitrary power of the Sovereign, 
which was purely a political measure, and one 
for which the friends of the Church were as 
anxious as its enemies. Their secondary object 
was to deprive the Bishops of their political 



OF THE CHURCH. 167 

influence^ because that influence was en the 
side of the king ; and there was a very small 
fraction of the party who wished to overturn 
the Church and set up a Presbytery on its ruins. 
Yet strange as it may seem^ the Long Par- 
liament which took up arms against Charles I. ; 
which conquered and beheaded him ; which 
deprived the Bishops of their votes^ and 
beheaded Archbishop Laud ; which drove out 
Episcopacy for the time being, and established 
Presbyterianism ; which condemned the Pray- 
er Book as a popish work^ and forbade its use 
in public or in private — this very Puritan 
Parliament had at first only one man in it who 
was a Presbyterian. So entirely was the pu- 
ritan party a political one, that all the mem- 
bers of that noted parliament, excej)t one, 
were Episcopalians ; and it is a melancholy ex- 
ample of the blindness of party zeal, that in 
their eager haste to obtain political advantages, 
they were willing to combine against the 
Church which they regarded as the purest and 
best in existence, and for whose sake, if they 
had lived in Queen Mary's reign, many of 
them would doubtless have been willing to 
shed their blood. 



168 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

It would be out of place here to do more 
than to state the results of the action of this 
parliament. They did their best to destroy 
the reformed Church of England, and, if laws 
or human instrumentalities could have accom- 
plished such a result, they would have utterly 
rooted up the Church. They removed the 
Bishops from their sees, and forbade them, un- 
der heavy penalties, to exercise their offices in 
any way. They ejected all the clergy from 
their parishes except those who would take an 
oath to endeavor to root out popery and 'prela- 
cy. They forbade the use of the Prayer Book 
even in a ^private family^ still more in a public 
assembly, under penalty of fines and impris- 
onment ; and they used all efforts to root out 
from remembrance every thing connected with 
the Church's worship and discipline. 

Tet the Church of England was not des- 
troyed : her Bishops and priests waited with 
patience for the storm of fanaticism to pass 
over, and when the clear sky again appeared, 
the Church, chastened by affliction and taught 
by sad experience, entered again upon her 
rightful heritage. 



CHAPTER X. 



The results of Puritan dominion. — The clergy ejected. — 
Use of the Prayer Book prohibited. — Organs and sur- 
plices forbidden. — Violence of fanaticism. — Sects mul- 
tiply. — The ministry usurped by ignorant enthusiasts. — 
Various sects permanently organized. — The evils of di- 
vision fastened on the generations to come. — The reaction 
from Puritan strictness to great laxity, and then to cold- 
ness and formalism. — First intentions and efforts of the 
Wesleys. — Peculiarities of Mr. Wesley's discipline. — 
The first Methodists were all members of the Church of 
England. — Wesley's advice to the Methodists, not to 
separate from the English Church. — IIov^ the American 
Methodists came to separate. 

The period of nearly twenty years, during 
which the Church of England was proscribed 
by those who held the reins of power, is one of 
the deepest interest. It is a period the history 
of which few persons can read without having 
their feelings and prejudices deeply enlisted on 
the side of one or the other of the great polit- 
ical and religious parties ; for the reason that 
the parties then formed have come down with 
slight variations to our own times, and nearly 
every reader now belongs to some party which 
had its origin in those eventful and exciting 

days. 

(16)) 



170 HISTOKICAL SKETCHES 

When the clergy of the Church of England 
were prohibited from discharging the duties of 
their office, and severe penalties were enforced 
upon all who should make use of the Prayer 
Book, the Puritans, being left at full liberty 
to carry out their own views in religious mat- 
ters, entered with great ardor upon the work of 
reforming the nation according to their standard. 

They everywhere substituted extemjDorane- 
ous prayers for the devotions of the Prayer 
Book ; they destroyed the organs in many of 
the churches and forbade their use in all ; they 
banished the surplice and other ecclesiastical 
dresses, calling them ^^rags of popery,'' and 
removed all ornaments from the churches ; in 
short, they exterminated, as far as possible, all 
the ceremonies and usages which had been 
practiced in the Church of England, and made 
everything as different as they could. 

The feelings of all parties were kept up to a 
point of unnatural excitement by the stirring 
events of the times, and controversies upon the 
smallest matters were carried on with a violence 
and a bitterness which did no credit to religion. 

It was at this time that the Presbyterians, 
the Congregationalists and the Quakers became 



OF THE CHURCH. 17l 

fiilly organized, in England, in their present 
form, although the two former had their first 
beginnings in England seventy years before. 
There was no particular form of Church gov- 
ernment established by law, but most of those 
who occupied the prominent pulpits were either 
Presbyterians or Oongregationalists. 

Numerous smaller sects arose, following the 
extravagant notions of this or that preacher, 
some of which have continued down to the 
present day, but most of them died in the age 
that produced them. It was a time admirably 
adapted to the growth of all kinds of fanatical 
extravagancies, for men's minds were unsettled 
on religion, in consequence of the great changes 
which had taken place ; and, as any man 
preached, who chose to do so, every facility was 
given for the promulgation of all sorts of 
opinions. 

Only a small portion of the puritan preachers 
seem to have been regularly ordained by any 
body, but each man who thought himself called 
to preach set himself up for a minister, and 
asked no authority from any one. Thus in the 
army nearly all the officers, and many of the 
private soldiers, were in the habit of preaching 



172 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

frequently, while, throughout the country, 
ignorant men of various trades and callings 
wrought at their work on week days, and 
expounded the Scriptures on Sundays. 

Two evils resulted from this state of things, 
which are still felt among us at the present 
day. One was the lowering of the estimate 
put upon the ministerial office, since the most 
ignorant men made themselves ministers ; and 
the other was the slight regard paid to the 
ancient and regular rules for the calling, ordina- 
tion and discipline of the ministry, without 
which rules, experience has proved that no 
efficient ministry can be kept up for any length 
of time. 

But, while the Puritans were so very lax in 
requiring uniformity of doctrine or of Church 
organization, they were very strict in enforcing 
the outward appearance of morality. Various 
amusements were forbidden, great plainness 
of dress was inculcated, and an unnatural air 
of gravity and seriousness pervaded the land, 
which was very distasteful to those who were 
not of the puritan party. 

This party continued in power, as a religious 
and political combination, for about twenty 



OF THE CHURCH. 173 

years, being directed in all its movements, 
during the latter half of that time, by the 
energy and talents of Oliver Cromwell ; but 
after, his death the civil government was 
restored to its former condition, the political 
power of the puritan party was broken, and 
the Church of England was restored to the 
position which it had previously occupied during 
the reign of Elizabeth. 

During the twenty years of puritan rule, the 
numbers of the Puritans had greatly increased, 
and a generation that had grown up during 
that period, had been educated in their princi- 
ples, ignorant of and prejudiced against the 
worship and discipline of the Church of Eng- 
land. When, therefore, the Church was 
re-established on its former basis, as the 
National Church, instead of the few scattering 
individuals who in the days of Elizabeth were 
too scrupulous to wear a surplice or listen to 
an organ, there was now a large minority of the 
nation who went by the name of Puritans, and 
were more or less opposed to the Church. 

These persons continued to use the worship 
and discipline to which they had been accus- 
tomed for the preceding twenty years, and thus 



174 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

numerous congregations of Presbyterians^ Bap- 
tists, Quakers, Congregationalists and various 
smaller sects were permanently established in 
all parts of the country. From that period to 
the present this state of things has been 
perpetuated in England and wherever the 
English language is used. 

The Puritans at first were only a few over- 
scrupulous and over-zealous men, who were 
offended because their ideas on the subject 
of discipline and ritual were not adopted ; 
afterward their numbers were largely increased 
by the addition of those who opposed the Bish- 
ops, on political grounds; and finally they 
gained sufficient power to change the form of 
government, and drive out, for a time, the 
Church from its old position as the National 
Church. 

After having their own way for twenty years, 
they became too firmly settled in their attach- 
ment to their own peculiarities, too strongly 
confirmed in their prejudices, and too much 
imbued with the bitter hostility of party spirit, 
to have any desire for union with the Church 
of England. Therefore they stood aloof from 
the Church after her re-establishment ; they 



OF THE CHURCH. 175 

formed congregations of their own, trained up 
their children in their views, and thus succeed- 
ed in making many millions of men, at the 
present day, stand as continual adversaries to 
each other, on account of a trifling quarrel 
about organs J and surplices and crosses which 
began three hundred years ago, and which 
not one in a thousand of those who oppose each 
other at the present day ever heard about. 

Since the political downfall of the Puritans 
and the restoration of the Church of England 
there has been but one other considerable 
secession from her communion — that of the 
Methodists — whose history will now be briefly 
considered. 

During the short rule of the Puritans they 
were very rigid in enforcing strictness and seri- 
ousness of manners, carrying their views on 
these points to an extreme that was very dis- 
tasteful to the majority of the nation ; so 
much so that all who were not of the puritan 
party looked upon the religion of that party 
as one that cut off its votaries from all the 
natural pleasures of the senses and of social 
intercourse, and cordially hated it for its gloom- 
iness and austerity. 



176 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

As soon therefore as the Puritans lost their 
political ascendency, and the severe laws which 
they had enacted were repealed, the people, 
like children released from long confinement 
in school, broke forth into all manner of ex- 
travagancies, and, having the example of a 
corrupt and licentious king to encourage their 
excesses, the morals of the nation soon became 
much worse than at any period since the Ee- 
formation. After a short period of wicked 
licence there came a much longer period of 
spiritual coldness and formality, during which 
time there was a serious lack of faithfulness 
among the clergy, and among the laity there 
was a general disposition to be satisfied with 
the form of godliness without its power. 

The object of the founders of Methodism 
was to overcome this religious apathy and to 
awaken the members of the Church of Eng- 
land to greater earnestness and spirituality in 
their religion. 

The original founders of Methodism were 
John and Charles Wesley, both of them being 
ministers of the Church of England and mem- 
bers of the University of Oxford. It was 
while residing at Oxford that they began their 



OF THE CHURCH. 177 

efforts to improve the spiritual condition of their 
neighbors, and they continued these efforts 
with considerable success for several years. 

In the year 1738, John Wesley began preach- 
ing in London wherever an opportunity was 
afforded him, sometimes in churches and some- 
times in other places, and, a considerable 
number of persons being brought to embrace 
his views, he formed them into a society, made 
rules for their observance and obtained a build- 
ing in which he regularly met with and 
instructed them. After this he visited other 
places, as did also his brother Charles, and 
they preached in the fields, in the streets or 
wherever they could obtain an audience. 

Such was their success that societies similar 
to the one in London were organized wherever 
they preached, and the number of the Meth- 
odists increased astonishingly. As they in- 
creased in number and new opportunities 
forpreaching presented themselves, Mr. Wesley 
accepted the offers of serious and devout lay- 
men to preach, under his direction, and, after 
satisfying himself in regard to their qualifica- 
tions, he sent them to labor where he supposed 

they could be most useful. 

12 



178 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

He also appointed stewards to attend to the 
money contributed by the societies^ and to see 
to all business matters. Thus there grew up 
a large number of societies with a multitude 
of preachers and with considerable pecuniary 
ability. Their numbers still continuing to in- 
crease, chapels were built for their accommo- 
dation, a school was founded for the training 
of their preachers, and the machinery of their 
government was improved till it resulted in a 
system of great regularity and efficiency. 

The most striking peculiarity of the system 
was the absolute and unlimited control which 
Mr. Wesley exercised over all the societies 
and preachers. The first members of the 
Methodist societies were persons who had been 
converted under the preaching of Mr. Wesley 
and his brother, and for these societies he 
framed a set of rules, which all who became 
members bound themselves to observe. As 
the societies increased, Mr. Wesley adapted 
his first rules to any new exigencies that might 
arise, still retaining for himself a general super- 
vision over all the societies. 

When there were more than 50,000 members 
in his societies, and they were scattered over 



OF THE CHUROH. 179 

all England and Ireland, Mr. Wesley still 
retained the same authority over them Vhich 
he exercised when there was but one society 
under his own immediate care ; he still made 
and altered their rules as he saw fit, allowing 
no person to direct him. AU the stewards 
were appointed by him, were directed by him 
how to apply the money which they received, 
and were removed by him at pleasure. All 
the preachers also were examined and licensed 
by him, and each year he appointed the itine- 
rant preachers to their several stations. When- 
ever a member or a preacher refused to submit 
to Mr. Wesley's directions, he simply ceased 
to be a member of the Methodist society. 

And as the organization and discipline of 
the Methodist societies were essentially differ- 
ent from any of the organizations established 
by the Puritans, so was the object aimed at 
by Mr. Wesley and his fellow laborers entirely 
different from anything attempted by the 
Puritans. The aim of the Puritans was to 
overthrow the Church of England and set up 
a Presbyterian, or Congregational, or Quaker 
organization in place of it ; the aim of the 
Wesleys was to revive and invigorate the 



180 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

Church of England bv promoting holiness 
among its members and by gathering into it 
the outcasts and the neglected whom they 
found in the fields and in the streets. 

No fact is plainer, to any one who examines 
Mr. Wesley's writings, than that he was 
most warmly and sincerely attached to the 
Church of England, of which Church he was 
a regularly ordained minister and continued 
such till his death. From the first it was one 
of his established rules that no preacher should 
preach during the hours of service in the 
neighboring Church, but either before or after 
service. It was also a standing regulation 
that all the members of his societies, preachers 
as well as private members, should attend the 
regular services of the Church of England, 
should receive the Holy Communion in the 
parish church, and should have their chil- 
dren baptized by the clergy of the English 
Church. 

Mr. Wesley did not allow his preachers to 
baptize nor to administer the Communion, and 
was particular to have them called preachers 
or helpers and not ministers. He would not 
allow his societies to be called churches^ and 



OF THE CHURCH, 181 

until the day of his death he warned and 
entreated the Methodists not to leave the 
Church of England. 

In the year 1789^ about a year and a half 
before Mr. Wesley's death^ he wrote as follows : 
" When the people^ joined together simply to 
help each other to heaven^ increased by hun- 
dreds and thousands, they had no more thought 
of leaving the Church than of leaving the 
kingdom. Nay, I continually and earnestly 
cautioned them against it ; reminding them 
that we were a part of the Church of England, 
whom God had raised up not only to save our 
own souls, but also to enliven our neighbors, 
those of the Church in particular, I never had 
any design of separating from the Church ; I 
have no such design now. I do not believe the 
Methodists in general design it, when I am no 
more seen. I do, and will do all in my power 
to prevent such an event. Nevertheless, in 
spite of all I can do, many of them will sep- 
arate from it (although I am apt to think not 
one-half, perhaps not a third of them). These 
will be so bold and injudicious as to form a 
separate party, which consequently will dwindle 
away into a dry, dull, separate party. In flat 



182 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

opposition to these, I declare once more that I 
live and die a member of the Church of Eng- 
land, and that none who regard my judgment 
or advice will ever separate from it/' 

Mr. Wesley's prediction that the Methodists 
would separate from the Church of England 
was soon fulfilled^ and he was one of the agents 
in producing the separation, although he did 
not intend to produce any such result. In the 
year 1784, Mr. Wesley appointed Dr. Coke 
(who was a regularly ordained presbyter of the 
Church of England) and Mr. Francis Asbury 
(who was a layman) to be joint Superintendents 
over the Methodists in America. The follow- 
ing is a quotation from the testimonial letter 
addressed by Mr. Wesley '^ to Dr. Coke, Mr. 
Asbury, and our brethren in North America,'' 
and which these two gentlemen brought with 
them when they came to their new juris- 
diction. 

Mr. Wesley says — "I have accordingly 
appointed Dr. Coke, and Mr. Francis Asbury, 
to be joint Superintendents over our brethren 
in North America ; as also Eichard Whatcoat 
and Thomas Vasey to act as Elders among 
them by baptizing and administering the Lord's 



OF THE CHURCH. 183 

Supper. And I have prepared a liturgy,^' little 
differing from that of the Church of England 
(I think the best constituted National Church 
in the world) which I advise all the travelling 
preachers to use on the Lord's day, in all the 
congregations, reading the Litany only on 
Wednesdays an(t Fridays, and praying extem- 
pore on all other days. I also advise the 
Elders to administer the Supper of the Lord 
on every Lord's day.*'* 

Mr. Wesley seems to have acted in this 
matter at the request of others, as the whole 
proceeding was contrary to his former princi- 
ples, and its direct tendency was to cause a 
new Church to be set up by the Methodists, 
instead of remaining members of the Church 
of England, as they had been from the first 
beginning of Methodism. Therefore, as soon 
as Dr. Coke met the Conference of Methodists 
at Baltimore, he opened his commission from 
Mr. Wesley, proceeded to have Mr. Asbury 
ordained a Superintendent, f taking the same 

* The writer has seen an original copy of the Liturgy 
which Mr. Wesley prepared for the use of the American 

Methodists. 

t The following account is taken from '' A Short History 
of the Methodists," by Jesse Lee, who was one of the early 



184 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

title also himself, and the Methodist societies 
then took the name of the '^ Methodist Epis- 
copal Church ; '' and have since that time been 

Methodist preachers, and whose work is mostly taken from 
the minutes of the Conferences. It was published at Bal- 
timore in 1810. 

'' December 27th, 1784. — The thirte^m conference began 
at Baltimore, which was considered to be a general confer- 
ence, in which Thomas Coke and Francis Ashury presided. 
At this conference we formed ourselves into a regular 
Church, by the name of the Methodist Epi^opal Church ; 
making at the same time the Episcopal oflQce elective, and 
the elected superintendent amenable to the body of minis- 
ters and preachers. 

'' Mr. Asbury was appointed a superintendent by Mr. Wes- 
ley^ yet he would not submit to be ordained, unless he could 
be voted in by the conference ; when it was put to vote, he 
was unanimously chosen. He was then ordained Beacon^ 
then Blder^ and afterwards Superintendent^ before the end 
of the conference." — p. 94. 

The third question on the minutes, as given by this 
author, is in part thus — 

" What plan of church government shall we hereafter 
pursue % " Answer. — " We will form ourselves into an 
Episcopal Church, under the direction of superintendents, 
elders, deacons and helpers." * * 'p — p. 96. 

Mr. Lee, on pages 127 and 128, says — "In the course 
of this year (1787) Mr. Asbury reprinted the general 
minutes ; but in a different form from what they were 
before. * * =^ The third question in the second section, and 
the answer, read thus : ' Q. — Is there any other business to 
be done in conference ? A. — The electing and ordaining of 
Bishops, Elders, and Deacons.' This was the first time that 
our Superintendents ever gave themselves the title of Bishops, 
in the minutes They changed the title themselves^ without 
the consent of the conference ; and at the next conference 
they asked the preachers if the word Bishop might stand in 
the minutes j seeing that it was a Scripture name, and the 



OF THE CHURCH. 185 

a distinct body, having no connection with the 
Church of England. After Mr. Wesley's 
death a portion of the English Methodists did 
the same thing, while only a few remained in 
the communion of the Church of England. 

This was the last of the separations from 
the Church of England, and the last of the 
new Churches formed by withdrawing from her 
communion. In the next chapter we shall see 
how very differently the Protestant Episcopal 
Church was organized. 

meaning of the word Bishop was the same with that of 
Stipey'intendent. 

"■ Some of the preachers opposed the alteration, and 
wished to retain the former title ; but a majority of the 
preachers agreed to let the word Bishop remain." * * * 
" From that time the name of Bishop has been in common 
use among us, both in conversation and in writing." 



CHAPTER XL 



Organization of the Protestant Episcopal Church. — Society 
fhr the Propagation of the Gospel. — Opposition of the 
Puritans to the appointment of American Bishops. — 
DiflSculties under which the Church in the colonies 
labored. — Troubles about obtaining Bishops after the 
Revolution. — Complete organization of the New Na- 
tional Chukch. — The right to separate was the puritan 
principle. — Various divisions that have grown out of it. — 
Baptists, Quakers, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and 
Methodists all have divided and subdivided since their 
separation- from the Church of England. — The Church 
of England never divided. — The Protestant Episcopal 
Church has continued one Church and must so continue 
as long as she exists. 

When the American Colonies were settled, 
the colonists were not all Puritans, nor were a 
majority of them of that party. In North 
and South Carolina and in Virginia nearly all 
the settlers professed allegiance to the Church 
of England^ and their clergy were nearly all 
of that Church ; in the New England colo- 
nies there were but few clergy or members of 
the English Church ; but in New York, New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware 
a considerable portion of the people and clergy 

Were members of the Church of England. 
(186) 



OF THE CHURCH. 187 

As in all new countries, they met with 
many difficulties in establishing and main- 
taining their worship ; the sparseness of the 
population, the poverty of the people, and 
the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient number 
of quahfied ministers to take charge of par- 
ishes where the labor was great and the pay 
small, all conspired to make the growth of the 
congregations of the Church of England 
among the colonists slow and uncertain. 

And it would have been still slower had it 
not been for the assistance rendered to them 
by the "Society for the Propagation of the 
Gospel in foreign parts.'' This, the oldest of 
all Protestant missionary societies, was found- 
ed in the year 1701 ; its object was to assist 
the colonists who were members of the Church 
of England, and who were unable to procure or 
support clergymen. The society collected 
funds in England, and procured clergymen 
who were willing to emigrate, and, after their 
arrival in this country, paid part or the whole 
of their salary until the congregation became 
strong enough to do without its aid. Many 
of the leading congregations of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church at the present day were in 



188 HISTOKICAL SKETCHES 

their infancy nourished and aided by the So- 
ciety for the Propagation of the (xospeL 

The congregations of the members of the 
Church of England in the colonies had many 
difficulties to contend with besides those that 
were incident to all new countries ; and the 
w^onder is, not that they did not increase 
faster, but that they could increase at all. 

In the first place they could not be organ- 
ized as a complete Church, because they had 
no Bishops. The Puritans, in this country 
and in England, used every exertion to prevent 
the consecration of Bishops for the colonies ; 
the English government did not incline to 
appoint Bishops, partly from indifference and 
partly for fear it would render the Church 
in the colonies independent of the mother 
Church ; .and the English Bishops, for some 
reason or other, showed no great inclination to 
move in the matter. Therefore though the 
members of the Church in the colonies urged 
and entreated that Bishops might be appoint- 
ed over them, it was never done till after the 
Ke volution. 

Having no Bishops, there was no authority 
to keep the clergy in order, except the Bishop 



OF THE CHURCH. 189 

of London, and he was so far away that his 
aufhority did not amount- to much; so the 
clergy did as they pleased, and ministers who 
were too incompetent or too unworthy to be 
retamed in any decent position at home, em- 
igrated to this country and became a continual 
damage and annoyance io the feeble congre- 
gations upon which they imposed themselves. 
1 He Churches had no representative assemblies 
m which they could meet for mutual confer- 
ence or to devise measures to promote their 
common interests ; but were simply isolated ' 
congregations with no common centre and 
no bond of union except that created by 
ha^ang the same worship and like principles. 

To these disadvantages was added a stiU 
more serious one, namely, that there was no 
opportunity for receiving the rite of Confirm- 
ation, nor for having any native clergy ordained 
except by making a dangerous and expensii^ 
voyage across the Atlantic for the purpose 

But notwithstanding these disadvantages, 
the churches did increase until the difficulties 
arose which caused the American Kevolution 
and terminated in the independence of the 
United States. At the breaking out of the 



190 HISTOKICAL SKETCHES 

war of independence, although Washington 
and the principal leaders of the revolutionary 
movement were members of the Church of 
England, yet the majority of the clergy, hav- 
ing taken the oath of allegiance to the hing^ 
at their ordination, did not feel at liberty to 
break that oath, and they either discontinued 
their ministrations or left the country. Only 
a small proportion continued their regular 
services and took sides against the king's 
authority, and the rest were considered as 
belonging to the royalist party, whether they 
were royalists or not. 

When therefore the Revolution was ended, 
the churches were left in a worse condition 
than ever before. Many of them had no 
ministers ; all of them rested under the im- 
putation of being unfriendly to the principles 
of the Eevolution, and so had to struggle 
against the deepest hostility of popular prej- 
udice ; they had now no Bishops to govern, 
confirm or ordain them, and, according to their 
principles, they could not organize as a complete 
Church, until this difficulty was removed. 

But they set earnestly to work ; they suc- 
ceeded in getting together a convention of 



OF THE CHURCH. 191 

delegates from the churches in the diflferent 
states ; they framed canons for their temporary- 
government, and they made an urgent appeal 
to the English Bishops to consecrate Bishops 
for them. After much delay, their request 
was finally granted, and William White of 
Pennsylvania, Samuel Provoost of New York, 
and James Madison of Virginia ( all of them 
Presbyters of the Church of England and 
citizens of the United States), were consecrated 
by the English Bishops as Bishops for the 
American Church. And previous to their 
consecration, Samuel Seabury, of Connecticut, 
was consecrated a Bishop by three of the 
Scottish Bishops. 

Having, in three years after the conclusion 
of the Revolutionary war, obtained four duly 
consecrated Bishops, with the full consent and 
approbation of the authorities of the mother 
Church of England, and with their assistance 
as consecrators of the Bishops, these who had 
hitherto been members and ministers of the 
Church of England, now organized themselves 
as the Protestant Episcopal Church in the 
United States of America, changing no one 
of their principles, altering none of their 



192 HISTOBICAL SKETCHES 

doctrines^ and cutting themselves off from no 
Church. 

The Presbyterians, Oongregationalists, Bap- 
tists, Quakers, Methodists, and various minor 
sects separated from the communion of the 
Church of England, andcw^ themselves off from 
all connection with her ; and the proof that 
this is so is found in the fact that never since 
the day of their separation have any of them 
had any fraternal intercourse with the Church 
of England. But the American Episcopal 
Church did never cut herself off from the 
Church of England, nor did the English Church 
ever cut her off ; so that they are still One 
Communion, ihough.mdej)endent of each other's 
control ; and the proof that this is so is found 
in the fact that any clergyman of the Church 
of England may preach in any parish of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church, and any clergy- 
man of the American Episcopal Church may 
preach in any parish Church in England. 

Since the day that the Church of England 
was planted, and that is certainly more than 
sixteen hundred years, there has never been 
a division in her communion ; no new Epis- 
copal Church has ever been formed by her 



OF THE CHURCH. 193 

children ; but she has stood, through evil days 
and good ones, through the rise- and fall of 
empires, through all the changes of dynasties, 
under every form of government, from the 
Koman Emperor, to the Kepublican President 
and the Constitutional Queen, one and undi- 
vided. 

History is said to be ^Thilosophy teaching 
by Example ;'' and what a lesson do the vari- 
ous separations from the Church of England 
teach us in regard to the danger of breaking 
the unity of the Church on account of minor 
differences. The Baptists separated from the 
Church of England on account of their differ- 
ence on one j)oint ; the result is that they are 
now divided into not less than eight distinct 
denominations, some of which have very far 
departed from orthodoxy, and all are widely 
at variance with each other . The Quakers 
have also divided since they left the Church 
of England, and a part of them are considered 
by the other portion as holding dangerous and 
heretical doctrines. The Presbyterians, when 
they left the Church of England, differed from 
it in no matter of doctrine, and in but one 

point of real importance in the matter of 

13 



194 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

Church government ; they are now divided 
into four distinct ecclesiastical bodies, having 
but little sympathy with each other, to say the 
least of it. The Congregationalists have seen a 
portion of their ministers and congregations 
turn to be Unitarians, and some of these again 
to be Universalists ; proving that their chosen 
plan of Church government could neither 
prevent divisions nor even hold fast the 
orthodox faith. And lastly, the Methodists, 
during a separate existence of only about 
seventy years, have, by dividing into four 
denominations in this country and several more 
in England, proved that the strongest bands 
of discipline cannot prevent division when the 
right to separate for trifling causes has once 
been assumed as a principle. 

And the reason for this multipUcation of 
sects is plain. The Puritans separated from 
the Church of England, not on account of any 
wrong doctrine which they believed her to 
maintain, but because they were not satisfied 
with certain small matters in her worship and 
discipline. Thus they practically established 
this as one of their tenets, that whenever any 
number of persons are dissatisfied with any 



OF THE CHURCH. 195 

thing in the doctrine or the practical working 
of the Church, they are justified in leaving its 
communion and forming a new Church for 
themselves. 

They established this tenet by the strong 
argument of their own example ; and the 
inevitable consequence was, that when some of 
their own body became dissatisfied with certain 
doctrines and certain practices insisted on by 
the^e very Puritans^ they followed the example 
of their fathers, separated from their com- 
munion, and set up a new sect after their own 
notion, just as the Puritans separated from the 
Church of England and made new Churches 
to suit themselves. 

If the Puritans maintained that it was right 
for them to separate from the Church of Eng- 
land on account of trifling differences, they 
could not maintain that it was wrong for their 
descendants to separate from them on account 
of still greater differences. 

Thus, the principle being once established, 
they could not limit its application, and the 
separating process seems likely to continue 
going on until there shall either be no sect 
large enough to divide again, or tiU men shall 



196 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

be convinced that the principle on which the 
Puritans and all other separatists have acted 
is entirely lorong^ and shall earnestly set 
themselves to counteract the evil consequences 
which the conduct of the Puritans has entailed 
on the generations that have followed them. 

But the Church of England has been at 
unity in herself and has continued undivided 
since the day of her foundation ; and the 
American Episcopal Church is one with the 
Church of England^ standing in the relation 
of the daughter to the mother, alike in faith, 
alike in organization. In this united com- 
munion there has never been such a thing as 
division, and that fact is the best guarantee 
that no such thing ever will be. 

Do we seek a basis for the reunion of all 
those who hold the essential truths of the 
Gospel ? Where shall we find it except in 
this communion ? Can any other denomina- 
tion of Christians give us any assurance that 
it will not be again torn asunder by new divi- 
sions, as we have seen that they have all been 
divided before ? 

The wise man hath said, ^^The thing which 
hath been, it is that which shall be ; and that 



OF THE CHURCH. 197 

which is done^ is that which shall be done ; 
and there is no new thing under the sun/^ 
The communion of the English Church has 
remained one and undivided since the days of 
the Apostles, while all the others have been 
rent in twain again and again. 

There is yet another reason why the mem- 
bers of this communion consider this the only 
practical basis for the reuiiion of all orthodox 
Christians, and why they are unwilling to 
stand upon any other. This reason is that we 
can trace back our origin as an organized 
Church almost, if not quite, to the days of the 
Apostles, while every other denomination is, as 
history shows us, of comparatively recent 
origin ; none of them being much over three 
hundred years old, and some of them having 
been organized as churches within the memory 
of men who are now living. 

There is no Protestant Church but this which 
the Romanist may not taunt with having 
received the Gospel through the Church of 
Rome. The English is as old as the Roman 
Church, and had the Gospel in its purity long 
before the corruption and tyranny of the Pope 
were exercised or known in England. 



198 HISTORICAL SKETCHES 

Can any show a better basis for union than 
is here presented ? A Church founded in the 
days of Apostles — a Church which believes 
no more nor less than the faith which Apos- 
tles taught — a Church which has continued 
undivided since the days of its foundation — 
a Church which allows to its members the 
largest freedom of thought and action consist- 
ent with Christianity. If a better basis for 
union than this can be found^ the writer, foi 
one, is ready to take his stand upon it. 



PAEISH LIBEAEY. 



■» * » 



(BOUND IN MUSLIN.) 

Anjou's Eeiormation in Sweden, By Dr. Mason, $1.25 

The Catacombs of Eome, By Bp. Kip, 65 

Companion to the Prater Book, By Bp. Hobart, 40 

Tracts for Missionary Use, By Dr. Lay, 1 vol 1.00 

Help to Beading the Bible, By Nichols, 76 

Eeadings for Every Day in Lent. Miss Sewell 75 

Note. — The following Books of the Parish Library are also contained 
in the S. School Library. 

The Early Called, By Dr. Lewis, 25 

Evidences of Eevealed Eeligion, By Dr. Eichardson, . .80 

My Mother's Jewel, By Mrs. Eames, 50 

Herbert Atherton, 40 

The Little Episcopalian, 50 

Love, the Motive Principle, 25 

The Sign of the Cross, 60 

The Life of Bp. White, By Eev. J. N. Norton. 

The Life of Bp. Griswold, Do. 

Edward Howard, By M. E. J. , .40 

Life of Bp. Chase, By Eev. J. N. Norton. 

Life of Bp. Seabury, Do. 

Life of Bp. Hobart, Do. 

Life of Bp. Moore, Do. 

History of a Pocket Prayer-Book, By Eev. Dr. Dorr, . .50 

Life of Henry Martyn, By Eev. D. P. Sanford, 40 

1 



PARISH LIBRARY CONTESTUED. 

Life of Bp. Dehon, By Rev. J. N. Norton. 
Life of Bp. Gadsden, Do. 

Life of Bp. Heber, Do. 

Child of Faith, By Rev. R. B. Fairbairn, 26 

Life of George Herbert, By G. L. Duyckinck, 60 

Velvet Cushion, By Cunningham, 30 

Mirage of Life, 30 

Life of Bp. Ravenscroft, By Rev. J. N. Norton. 

Bessie Melville : Sequel to Little Episcopalian 65 

Life of Bp. Wainwright, By Rev. J. N. Norton. 
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Life of Bp. Croes, Do. 

Life of Bp. Henshaw, Do. 

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Life of Bp. Bowen, By Rev. J. N. Norton. 

Life of Bp. Ken, By G. L. Duyckinck, 60 

Life of Bp. Freeman, By Rev. J. N. Norton. 

Life of Bp. Bass. 

Life of Bp. Stewart, of Quebec. 

Lives of Phelps and Nash, 40 

Why I AM A Churchman, By Dr. Randall, 20 

Rainbow in the North, By Miss Tucker, 50 

Sunrise in the Tropics, Do. .60 

Magdala and Bethany, 40 

Life of Bp. Provoost, By Rev. J. N. Norton, 40 

Life of Jeremy Taylor, By G. L. Duyckinck. 
Amy Grant, or the One Motive, By Miss Sewell. 
2 



